Ranch
A ranch (from Spanish: rancho/Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often applied to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Western Canada, though there are ranches in other areas.[1][note 1] People who own or operate a ranch are called ranchers, cattlemen, or stockgrowers. Ranching is also a method used to raise less common livestock such as horses, elk, American bison, ostrich, emu, and alpaca.[2]
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 or the United States Forest Service. 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.[2]
Ranches that cater exclusively to tourists are called
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Ranch occupations
The person who owns and manages the operation of a ranch is usually called a rancher, but the terms cattleman, stockgrower, or stockman are also sometimes used. If this individual in charge of overall management is an employee of the actual owner, the term foreman or ranch foreman is used. A rancher who primarily raises young stock sometimes is called a cow-calf operator or a cow-calf man. This person is usually the owner, though in some cases, particularly where there is absentee ownership, it is the ranch manager or ranch foreman.
The people who are employees of the rancher and involved in handling livestock are called a number of terms, including cowhand, ranch hand, and cowboy. People exclusively involved with handling horses are sometimes called wranglers.
Origins of ranching
Ranching and the
History in North America
When the
Cattle ranching flourished in Spanish Florida during the 17th century.[4]
The word "Rancho" in Mexico developed different definitions from what it originally meant in Spain. In the book "Descripción de la Diócesis de Guadalajara de Indias" (1770), Mateo José de Arteaga defined "Ranchos" as "extensions of land where few people live with few assets and sheltering in huts."[5] In 1778, José Alejandro Patiño, in his text "Topografía del Curato de Tlaxomulco," defined Ranchos as "some country houses of little pomp and value, in which poor and middle-class men live, cultivating the small lands that they have or lease in which to sow according to the size of each of their possibilities and raising their domestic rural animals according to their strength."[6][7]
By the nineteenth century, the words Rancho and Estancia as used in Mexico had been consolidated to define a unit of land that made up a Hacienda or any rural area or the countryside in general. Domingo Revilla in 1844, in his text "Los Rancheros", defined a Rancho or Estancia as "a unit of land which comprises a Hacienda, where cattle and horses are raised, and which is in the care of a Caporal who is the captain of the other cowboys."[8] Niceto de Zamacois, in his book "Historia de Méjico" (1879), defined terms as follows: "...the men of the countryside who carry out their jobs on horseback are given the name of "Rancheros," derived from the word Rancho that is applied to a small hacienda, or to a part of a large one that is divided into racherias or ranchos. Those who carry out the same tasks in the haciedas of Veracruz are given the name of "Jarochos."[9]
Thus the term Rancho in Mexican Spanish became a unit of land that makes up a hacienda where cattle is raised and where people live in farmhouses. The people that live and work in those Ranchos managing cattle and horses are called Rancheros.[10]
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.
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 other livestock 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
End of the open range
The end of the open range was not brought about by a reduction in land due to
Ranching in Hawaii
Ranching in
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 brother, 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
Ranching in South America
In
In the colonial period, from the
Ranches outside the Americas
In Spain, where the origins of ranching can be traced, there are ganaderías operating on
In
The equivalent terms in New Zealand are run and station.
In South Africa, similar large holdings are usually known as a farm (occasionally also ranch) in South African English and plaas in Afrikaans.
See also
- Animal husbandry
- Cattle station
- Garden tools
- Estancia
- Holistic management
- Homestead (buildings)
- Intensive animal farming § Cattle
- List of Ranches and Stations
- Movie ranch
- Pastoralism
- Ranch school
- Ranch-style house
- Sheep station
References
- ^ Spiegal, S., Huntsinger, L., Starrs, P.F., Hruska, T., Schellenberg, M.P., McIntosh, M.M., 2019. Rangeland livestock production in North America, in: Squires, V.R., Bryden, W.L. (Eds.), Livestock: Production, Management Strategies, and Challenges. NOVA Science Publishers, New York, New York, USA.
- ^ a b Holechek, J.L., Geli, H.M., Cibils, A.F. and Sawalhah, M.N., 2020. Climate Change, Rangelands, and Sustainability of Ranching in the Western United States. Sustainability, 12(12), p.4942.
- ^ Haeber, Jonathan. "Vaqueros: The First Cowboys of the Open Range". National Geographic News, August 15, 2003. Accessed online October 15, 2007.
- JSTOR 3740622.
- ISBN 9788400036959.
- ISBN 9789685073059. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
- ISBN 9788400036959.
- ^ Revilla, Domingo (1844). El museo mexicano o miscelánea de amenidades curiosas e instructivas Volume 3 (Volume 3 ed.). Mexico City: Ignacio Cumplido. p. 557. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
- ^ de Zamacois, Niceto (1879). Historia de Méjico desde sus tiempos mas remotos hasta nuestros dias Volume 10 (Volume 10 ed.). Barcelona and Mexico: J.F. Párres y compañia. p. 61. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
- ^ Domínguez, Ramon Joaquin (1856). Diccionario nacional ó gran diccionario clásico de la lengua Española. Vol. 2. Madrid, Paris: Mellado. p. 268. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
- ^ Deep Hollow Ranch History Archived 2007-11-22 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ a b c Ochs, Ridgeley. "Ride 'em, Island Cowboy," Newsday,. Accessed May 5, 2008
Notes
- ^ For terminologies in Australia and New Zealand, see Station (Australian agriculture) and Station (New Zealand agriculture).
Further reading
- ISBN 0-375-40131-8.
- Campbell, Ida Foster; Hill, Alice Foster (2002). Triumph and Tragedy: A History of Thomas Lyons and the LCs. Silver City, New Mexico: High-Lonesome Books. ISBN 0-944383-61-0.
- ISBN 0-913504-15-7.
- Greenwood, Kathy L. (1989). Heart-Diamond. University of North Texas Press. ISBN 0-929398-08-4.
- Paul, Virginia (1973). This Was Cattle Ranching: Yesterday and Today. Seattle, Washington: Superior.
- Ward, Delbert R. (1993). Great Ranches of the United States. San Antonio, Texas: Ganada Press. ISBN 1-88051-025-1.
External links
- The Canadian Museum of Civilization - Native Ranching and Rodeo Life on the Plains and Plateau
- The Handbook of Texas Online: Ranching
- Cattle Ranges of the Southwest, published 1898, hosted by the Portal to Texas History
- Guide to ranch archives in Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at Texas Tech
- Cowboys to Cattlemen Virtual Museum Exhibit and Lesson Plans at Grant-Kohrs Ranch NHS from National Park Service