Bill Nye's Cordwood

A COWBOY COLLEGE NEEDED TO EDUCATE YOUNG MEN TO THIS PROFESSION.No one can go through the wide territory of Montana to-day without being stronglyimpressed with the wonderful growth of the great cattle growing and grazing industry ofthat territory. And yet Montana is but the northern extremity of the great grazing beltwhich lies at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, extending from the British possessions onthe north to the Mexican border on the south, extending eastward, too, as far as the arablelands of Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas.Montana, at this season of the year, is the paradise of the sleek, high-headed, 2-year-oldTexan steer, with his tail over the dashboard, as well as the stock yearling, born on therange, beneath the glorious mountain sky and under the auspices of roundup No. 21.I do not say this to advertise the stock growing business, because it is already advertisedtoo much, anyway. So many millionaires have been made with "free grass" and the earlyrising, automatic branding iron that every man in the United States who has a cow that canstand the journey seems to be about to take her west and embark in business as a cattleking.But let me warn the amateur cow man that in the great grazing regions it takes a goodmany acres of thin grass to maintain the adult steer in affluence for twelve months, and thegreat pastures at the base of the mountains are being pretty well tested. Moreover, I believethat these great conventions of cattlemen, where free grass and easily acquired fortunesare naturally advertised, will tend to overstock the ranges at last and founder the goosethat now lays the golden egg. This, of course, is really none of my business, but if I didn'tnow and then refer to matters that do not concern me I would be regarded as reticent.My intention, however, in approaching the great cow industry, which, by the way, isanything but an industry, being in fact more like the seductive manner whereby apromissory note acquires 2 per cent. per month without even stopping to spit on its hands, was to refer incidentally to the proposition of an English friend of mine. This friend, seeingat once the great magnitude of the cow industry and the necessity for more and morecowboys, has suggested the idea of establishing a cowboys' college, or training school, forself-made young men who desire to become accomplished. The average Englishman willmost always think of something that nobody else would naturally think of. Now, ourcattleman would have gone on for years with his great steer emporium without thinking ofestablishing an institution where a poor boy might go and learn to rope a 4-year-old in sucha way as to throw him on his stomach with a sickening thud.The young Maverick savant could take a kindergarten course in the study of cow brands.Here a wide field opens up to the scholar