Series # 2

Colonel C. C. Slaughter - Answers a few questions - TEXAS LIVESTOCK JOURNAL, September 30, 1882 - Christopher Columbus Slaughter better know as Colonel C.C. Slaughter of Palo Pinto, Texas was asked, "How about the price of beef? Is it likely to go up or down?"
"Well", said he in reply, "prices are not likely to get any lower, but I don't think they will go up much either. Cold weather always gives the cattle raiser, a boom, but one thing to my mind is certain, and that is that the exorbitantly high prices of last spring will not
be repeated. I think that was chiefly owing to a dearth of crops.
"How about the prospects for coming years?"
"It is my opinion that each succeeding year sees the cattle raiser's on a surer and safer basis. There is only one thing he is likely to have to contend against, and that is the encroachments upon his domain by the settler, who is gradually purchasing west from Kansas and Nebraska and east from California and thus crowding him out. Stock raising and cattle raising in particular, offers so many inducements to capitalists that a number of very large combinations are going into the business every year. There will be a great deal of competition, and the man who can bring the best beef to market will, of course make the most money."

Look for more early history of the livestock industry and the Chisholm Trail.