Word: ranches
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Wyoming Lace. If one man could be the final expert on cattle raising, Bob Kleberg, at 51, would probably be it. He has a restless, all-consuming curiosity about cattle that is never satisfied. He has given his life to the job of running the King Ranch. As he says: "I have to. The bigger a thing is, the easier it is to lose!" On the ranch, he is awakened at 6 a.m. by the traditional King Ranch "good morning"-a cup of coffee brought to his bed. By 7 a.m. he has talked by phone to the foremen...
...Master Breed. A geneticist once wrote of Kleberg: "He works in the medium of heredity with the steady hand and eye of a man at a lathe turning out a part of a machine." His first great feat was the breeding of the King Ranch's Santa Gertrudis cattle, the only new breed of U.S. cattle that has had any commercial value. Economic necessity mothered the new breed...
There, he dons his white leather "Wyoming lace" (chaps), climbs on a horse and pitches in. Better than anyone else on the ranch, Bob knows when a steer is as fat as it will get and should be shipped, or when a cow has begun to fail as a calf-producer and should be slaughtered. He picks the calves to be saved for breeding, marks the ones to be sold. The shipping and branding is a year-round job, with fall the busiest time. Kleberg stays on a horse "because I can make more money on a horse." His slim...
...Master Breeder. By evening he is usually back in his ranch house at the Santa Gertrudis Ranch, the headquarters of the four divisions that make up the King Ranch. His house is no palace. Compared to the luxury of the swimming pool, the ten-car garage and the $350,000 towered and turreted main house of the Santa Gertrudis hacienda, the Kleberg's home is tiny (seven rooms). For privacy's sake they prefer it to the enormous main house, which they use as a guest house...
Back in 1917, the ranch's cattle-English Shorthorns and Herefords-were doing poorly. They sickened in the blazing Texas sun. Kleberg decided to try Brahman bulls, which thrive on grass feeding and India's killing heat. Other cattlemen shook their heads. Brahmans had not worked out too well for other breeders. But Kleberg bred the Brahmans and Shorthorns together till he evolved what he wanted, a cross-breed bull named Monkey...