[3] The bull-dogger let go. The calf
sprang up, was appropriated and smelled over by his worried
mother, and the two departed into the herd to talk it over.
[3] For the benefit of the squeamish it might be well to note
that the fragments of the ears were cartilaginous, and therefore
not bloody.
It seems to me that a great deal of unnecessary twaddle is
abroad as to the extreme cruelty of branding. Undoubtedly it is
to some extent painful, and could some other method of ready
identification be devised, it might be as well to adopt it in
preference. But in the circumstance of a free range, thousands
of cattle, and hundreds of owners, any other method is out of the
question. I remember a New England movement looking toward small
brass tags to be hung from the ear. Inextinguishable laughter
followed the spread of this doctrine through Arizona. Imagine a
puncher descending to examine politely the ear-tags of wild
cattle on the open range or in a round-up.
But, as I have intimated, even the inevitable branding and
ear-marking are not so painful as one might suppose. The
scorching hardly penetrates below the outer tough skin--only
enough to kill the roots of the hair--besides which it must be
remembered that cattle are not so sensitive as the higher nervous
organisms.
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