CATTLE is a term applied to the whole of that large variety of domestic animals known as the Bovine family. Naturalists have divided them into two primary groups — the hump-backed cattle (Bos Indicus) and the straight-backed cattle (Bos Taurus).

Some naturalists claim that these two groups are really only different varieties of the same species, while others claim that the marked differences in structure, habits and voice are such as would indicate a specific distinction.

The hump-backed variety is chiefly found in India and Africa, while the straight-backed cattle are common in all parts of the globe. Cattle seem to have been domesticated as far back as written and traditional history will take us.

The remains of the cow and the ox have been found as a part of the many evidences of the oldest civilizations, their bones having been discovered in the same caves with stone axes and stone knives. That the cow contributed immensely to the earlier civilizations cannot be doubted. Besides contributing to the daily bill of fare she became the common beast of burden, drawing the rudest of plows, sleds and carts, and in fact she does the same today to some extent in many parts of the world.

The common straight-backed cattle, as we know them in our country, remain an important factor even in this stage of civilization; while they are not generally used as beasts of burden, they furnish millions of gallons of milk and numberless pounds of butter, and finally sacrificing their entire bodies to the use of man. The principal part of the body goes to the meat block to become steaks, roasts and soup bones; the refuse flesh going to the manufacture of soaps largely; the hide furnishes most of our leather, the bones become fertilizer, the hoofs and horns make our glue, and lastly, the hair makes it possible for us to live in plastered houses.

In olden times a mans wealth seems to have been measured by the number of cattle he owned, and during the same period cattle were used as money, or a medium of exchange. Later when metal coinage came into use in Greece the image of an ox was stamped on the new money in commemoration of the old system. The same idea has left its impression on the languages of Europe as seen in the Latin word pecunia and the English word "pecuniary," both words being derived from pecus cattle.

America is the great cattle-producing country of the world. In the early settlement of this country the immense tracts of uncultivated grass lands were well adapted to cattle-raising, and many were the large herds to be seen west of the Ohio river on the great prairies of the country once known as the Northwest Territory. But as men came with their plows the herds were gradually driven farther and farther west. Cattle are very interesting animals when we once get acquainted with them.

The writer, when a boy, bad some experience herding cattle on an Illinois prairie. In this particular herd of which I wish to speak there were about seven hundred head and it required two of us and also two good shepherd dogs to keep them in control during, the early part of the herding season or until we got them "broken in," as the old herders used to say. These cattle had been wintered on various farms surrounding the herd grounds, so when they were brought together in the spring there were about fifteen different clans to contend with, each clan having its recognized leader. Now, these leaders are always a source of trouble to the herder, and especially is this true for the first few weeks after bringing them together.

The whole herd would be grazing and moving slowly along, seemingly perfectly satisfied, when suddenly one of those leaders would raise his head very high in the air and act as if he saw something very interesting a mile away and would immediately start off in a rapid walk, bellowing two or three times to notify his followers that he was out for a stroll. Then the whole of his clan would follow him at once. They would not go far until the leader would set the pace in a rapid trot.