Everything about Ranch totally explained
A
ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of
ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as
cattle or
sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western
United States and
Canada, though there are ranches in other areas. People who own or operate a ranch are called stockgrowers or ranchers. Ranching is also a method used to raise less common
livestock such as
elk,
American Bison or even
ostrich and
emu.
Ranches generally consist of large areas, but may be of nearly any size. In the western United States, many ranches are a combination of privately owned land supplemented by grazing leases on land under the control of the federal
Bureau of Land Management. If the ranch includes arable or irrigated land, the ranch may also engage in a limited amount of
farming, raising crops for feeding the animals, such as
hay and feed grains.
Ranches that cater exclusively to tourists are called
dude ranches. Most working ranches don't cater to guests, though they may allow private hunters or outfitters onto their property to hunt native wildlife. However, in recent years, a few struggling smaller operations have added some dude ranch features, such as horseback rides, cattle drives or guided hunting, in an attempt to bring in additional income. Ranching is part of the
iconography of the "Wild West" as seen in
Western movies.
Origins of ranching
Ranching and the
cowboy tradition originated in
Spain, out of the necessity to handle large herds of grazing animals on dry land from horseback. During the
Reconquista, members of the
Spanish nobility and various
military orders received large land grants that the kingdom of
Castile had
conquered from the Moors. These landowners were to defend the lands put into their control and could use them for earning revenue. In the process it was found that open-range breeding of sheep and cattle (under the
Mesta system) was the most suitable use for vast tracts, particularly in the parts of Spain now known as
Castilla-La Mancha,
Extremadura and
Andalusia.
History in North America
Spanish North America
When the
Conquistadors came to the
Americas in the 16th century, followed by settlers, they brought their
cattle and cattle-raising techniques with them. Huge land grants by the Spanish (and later Mexican) government, part of the
hacienda system, allowed large numbers of animals to roam freely over vast areas. A number of different traditions developed, often related to the original location in Spain from which a settlement originated. For example, many of the traditions of the
Jalisco charros in southern Mexico come from the
Salamanca charros of Castile. The
Vaquero tradition of Northern Mexico was more organic, developed to adapt to the characteristics of the region from Spanish sources by cultural interaction between the Spanish elites and the native and
mestizo peoples.
United States
As settlers from the
United States moved west, they brought cattle breeds developed on the east coast and in
Europe along with them, and adapted their management to the drier lands of the west by borrowing key elements of the Spanish
vaquero culture.
However, there were cattle on the eastern seaboard.
Deep Hollow Ranch, east of
New York City in
Montauk, New York, claims to be the first ranch in the United States, having continuously operated since 1658. The ranch makes the somewhat debatable claim of having the oldest cattle operation in what today is the United States, though cattle had been run in the area since European settlers purchased land from the
Indian people of the area in 1643. Although there were substantial numbers of cattle on Long Island, as well as the need to herd them to and from common grazing lands on a seasonal basis, the cattle handlers actually lived in houses built on the pasture grounds, and cattle were ear-marked for identification, rather than being branded.
The only actual "cattle drives" held on Long Island consisted of one drive in 1776, when the Island's cattle were moved in a failed attempt to prevent them from being captured by the British during the
American Revolution, and three or four drives in the late 1930s, when area cattle were herded down Montauk Highway to pasture ground near Deep Hollow Ranch.
The Open Range
The
prairie and
desert lands of what today is
Mexico and the western
United States were well-suited to "open range" grazing. For example,
American bison had been a mainstay of the diet for the
Native Americans in the Great Plains for centuries. Likewise, cattle and sheep, descended from animals brought over from Europe, were simply turned loose in the spring after their young were born and allowed to roam with little supervision and no fences, then rounded up in the fall, with the mature animals driven to market and the breeding stock brought close to the ranch headquarters for greater protection in the winter. The use of
livestock branding allowed the cattle owned by different ranchers to be identified and sorted. Beginning with the settlement of
Texas in the 1840s, and expansion both north and west from that time, through the
Civil War and into the 1880s, ranching dominated western economic activity.
Along with ranchers came the need for agricultural crops to feed both humans and livestock, and hence many
farmers also came west along with ranchers. Many operations were "diversified," with both ranching and farming activities taking place. With the
Homestead Act of 1862, more settlers came west to set up
farms. This created some conflict, as increasing numbers of farmers needed to fence off fields to prevent cattle and sheep from eating their crops.
Barbed wire, invented in 1874, gradually made inroads in fencing off privately owned land, especially for homesteads. There was some reduction of land on the
Great Plains open to grazing.
End of the Open Range
The end of the open range wasn't brought about by a reduction in land due to
arable farming, but by
overgrazing. Cattle stocked on the open range created a
tragedy of the commons as each rancher sought increased economic benefit by grazing too many animals on
public lands that "nobody" owned. However, being a non-native species, the grazing patterns of ever-increasing numbers of cattle slowly reduced the quality of the rangeland, in spite of the simultaneous massive slaughter of
American bison that occurred. The winter of 1886-1887 was one of the most severe on record, and livestock that were already stressed by reduced grazing died by the thousands. Many large cattle operations went bankrupt, and others suffered severe financial losses. Thus, after this time, ranchers also began to fence off their land and negotiated individual grazing leases with the American government so that they could keep better control of the pasture land available to their own animals.
Ranching in Hawaii
Ranching in
Hawaii developed independently of that in the continental United States. In colonial times, Capt.
George Vancouver gave several head of cattle to the Hawaiian king,
Pai`ea Kamehameha, monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom, and by the early 1800s, they'd multiplied considerably, to the point that they were wreaking havoc throughout the countryside. About 1812, John Parker, a sailor who had jumped ship and settled in the islands, received permission from Kamehameha to capture the wild cattle and develop a beef industry.
The Hawaiian style of ranching originally included capturing wild cattle by driving them into pits dug in the forest floor. Once tamed somewhat by hunger and thirst, they were hauled out up a steep ramp, and tied by their horns to the horns of a tame, older steer (or
ox) and taken to fenced-in areas. The industry grew slowly under the reign of Kamehameha's son Liholiho (
Kamehameha II). When Liholiho's son, Kauikeaouli (
Kamehameha III), visited
California, then still a part of
Mexico, he was impressed with the skill of the Mexican
vaqueros. In 1832, he invited several to Hawaii to teach the Hawaiian people how to work cattle.
The
Hawaiian cowboy came to be called the
paniolo, a Hawaiianized pronunciation of
español. Even today, the traditional Hawaiian saddle and many other tools of the ranching trade have a distinctly Mexican look, and many Hawaiian ranching families still carry the surnames of vaqueros who made Hawaii their home.
Ranching in South America
In
Argentina, ranches are known as
estancias, and in
Brazil, they're called
fazendas. In much of
South America , including
Ecuador and
Colombia, the term
hacienda may be used.
Ranchero or
Ranchos are also generic term used throughout
Latin America.
In the colonial period,
Pampas regions of
South America, particularly the
Semi-arid Pampas of
Argentina, were often well-suited to ranching and a tradition developed that largely paralleled that of Mexico and the United States. However, in the 20th century, cattle raising expanded into less-suitable areas. Particularly in
Brazil, the 20th century marked the rapid growth of
deforestation as
rain forest lands were cleared by
slash and burn methods that allowed grass to grow for livestock, but also led to the depletion of the land within only a few years. Many of
Indigenous peoples of the rain forest opposed this form of cattle ranching and protested the forest being burnt down to set up grazing operations and farms. This conflict is still a concern in the region today.
Ranches outside the Americas
In Spain, where the origins of ranching can be traced, there are
ganaderías operating on
dehesa-type land, where
fighting bulls are raised.
In
Australia, ranches are known as '
stations' in the context of what stock they carry - usually referred to as
Cattle stations or
Sheep stations. The largest cattle stations in the world are located in Australia's dry
rangeland in the
outback. Employees are known as
Stockmen,
jackaroos and ringers rather than ranchers or
cowboys. A number of Australian cattle stations average 10,000 km² or more, and the very largest is
Anna Creek station which measures 23,677 km² in area. Anna Creek is owned by S Kidman & Co.
New Zealanders use the term
runs.
The term "ranch" and the need for vast grazing area isn't used in
British agriculture. The nation has far less land area, and sufficient rainfall to allow the raising of
cattle on much smaller areas. From
medieval times,
cattle were traditionally raised in the small-area
bocage. For similar reasons, the concept of a "ranch" is also not seen to any significant degree in most of western
Europe. The only stock-raising properties in the
British Isles that are anywhere close to the size of the smaller ranches in other nations are the largest hill farms in the upland areas of the
United Kingdom.
Further Information
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