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Article: A fistful of dollars. (successful King Ranch of Texas)(includes a related article on the Parker Ranch in Hawaii)
- Article from:
- U.S. News & World Report
- Article date:
- July 24, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 All rights reserved. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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It's scorching hot out in the South Texas mesquite brush, and the dust kicked up by several hundred skittish calves leaves a stifling haze over the cattle pens where the ranch hands poke and prod the 400-pound babies through the weathered wooden chutes. The work is hard and dirty and smelly, but it's what King Ranch cowboys have been doing for more than a century: separating the crying three-month-olds from the mother cows, branding them with the famed "Running W" and making the necessary slices of the knife that turn young bulls into steers.
In some respects, time has stood still on these 825,000 acres once known by Spanish explorers as the "Desert of the Dead," and ...