[53] The brand consisted of any specific device, such as an initial, a monogram, or a conventional form that might be easily recognized. The device was registered and imprinted with a red-hot iron on the flank of the animal. Ear-marks, such as notches or similar devices, also indicated ownership.
[54] In many cases Government land, not owned by the rancher, has been fenced in. No objection was made, however, until the sheep-grazier came. He demanded the removal of the fences, claiming that he had an equal right to graze his herds on public lands. But inasmuch as a range once grazed by sheep is ruined for cattle-growing, the quarrel between the grazier and the rustler has become one in which both the grazier and the rustler turned upon the sheep-owner.
[55] It is one-third of their capital stock plus the bonded indebtedness.
[56] The high latitude of the wheat-region, which in most cases is too cold for the growing of food-stuffs, in this region is tempered by occasional warm winds known as "Chinook winds." These winds are the saving feature of wheat-growing. They prevail also in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon.
[57] Freight rates from Coatzacoalcos to San Francisco are already fixed at $6.50 per ton; by the transcontinental railways they vary from $12 to $15 per ton.
[58] The entire Cuban crop is comparatively small, being but little more than one-eighth that of the United States.
[59] Vegetable ivory is the seed or nut of a species of palm (Phytelephas macrocarpa). The kernel of the nut gradually acquires the hardness and appearance of the best ivory, for which it is employed as a substitute.
[60] The leaves of this shrub (Erythroxylon coca) contain a stimulant substance that in its effects is much like the active principle of coffee. They are much used by the native laborers to ward off the feeling of lassitude that comes with severe labor in a tropical climate. A native porter will carry a load of one hundred pounds a distance of sixty miles with no food or rest, but merely chewing a few coca-leaves. The plant yields the substance cocaine, now in demand all over the world as an anæsthetic in eye and throat surgery.
[61] More than a score of species of the tree from which this bark is obtained grow in the higher eastern slopes of the Andes, but a very large part is obtained from the tree, Cinchona calisaya. The medicinal substance, quinine, is extracted from the bark, and in the past half-century it has become the specific for malarial fevers. So great is the demand for it, that the cinchona-tree is now cultivated in India, Java, and Mexico.
[62] Only a very small proportion of the Panama hats in the market are genuine. Many of the imitations, selling at retail for ten dollars or more, are serviceable hats; most of them, however, have but little worth.