Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1896 — HORSES A PEST. [ARTICLE]

HORSES A PEST.

In the West They Are Praying for Cold to Destroy Them. Nearly 100,000 horses are likely to starve to death in Eastern Washington this winter and their owners are praying that they will. The horses are practically valueless; they would not bring $1 a head, and yet many of them are fine-look-ing animals. Electricity and the bicycle are the cause. Instead of being man’s best friend, the horse has actually become a pest thereabouts. Hot winds, squirrels and grasshoppers are less dreaded. There being no demand they are running wild on the ranches, are multiplying fast and eating the bunch grass that would otherwise support cattle and sheep. One horse will consume as much as five head of cattle, and yet they bring no return. Thousands of acres of ranges have been utterly destroyed by the horses. Up to three years ago Washington was shipping horses East in large numbers. Electricity and bicycles have killed the market. This year Traffic Manager Hannaford, of the Northern Pacific, h’as made vigorous efforts to find a market for horses in the East. Horses very cheap have been offered to glue factories and rendering establishments of various kinds. They do not want them. A few carloads are being shipped to the Atlantic coast for shipment to Prance, where horse meat is in demand, but these shipments make no impression on the supply.