Country Life
SOME time ago I was talking to a shepherd who gave me details of a few of the markings of sheep employed by owners of herds that range freely on the mountains. arc gathered up for shearing and dipping and sorted out when the time comes to remove them to lower pastures. It seemed to me that a register of markings was a very important thing to have, but the question of sorting out the sheep of a dozen owners is nothing to the problem that had to be faced in the North- West Territories of Canada when free-ranging cattle first started to be branded. The first register there contained 95 brands entered between 1880 and 1883. Today in Alberta there arc 21.000 registered cattle brands and 3,500 registered horse brands. Some of these markings are done with a hot iron and some with acid. While the iron causes much acute pain, the branding takes little time, whereas the acid process is protracted. Western films have made us all familiar with cowboys and cattle ranching. Branding is a skilled busi- ness and in the Canadian Provinces a small mistake can cause the duplication of a registered brand and lead to court action, altogether a more common happening thait cattle rustling.
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