Ranching, the business of cattle-breeding as pursued on a large scale in the unsettled districts of the United States from the Mississippi to the Pacific coasts, and from the Bad Lands of the Upper Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. The name is derived from the Spanish rancho, properly 'mess' or 'mess-room,' but used in Mexico also for a herdsman's hut, and finally for a grazing-farm, as distinguished from a hacienda, a plantation or cultivated farm. The speciality of ranching is that the cattle are raised and kept in a half-wild condition, with little or no house shelter provided and no artificial feeding. The life of the 'cowboys' and ranchmen, if no longer so wild and adventurous as it once was, is still sufficiently free, open, and exciting to have great charms for enterprising youths; and amongst rancheros are to be found not merely hereditary cattle-breeders and rough frontiersmen, but accomplished university-bred men, who in their scanty leisure cherish their Old-World tastes for literature and music. To these are added not a few men whose past history would hardly bear looking into—helping to provide the materials of a strangely mixed society.
Large fortunes were made in the wild old days, but the gradual settlement of the ranching country has seriously embarrassed the business of the ranchman. The old cattle-kings of the south often had ranges, under Spanish land-grants, extending over several hundred square miles, and would brand many thousand calves each year. Herds would be 'on the trail' for from two to four months, the cattle from Texas crossing Red River, and passing through Indian Territory and southern Kansas to the railway; but the gradual settlement of the country and the extension of railways render these long trails impracticable and needless. The great events of the ranchman's year are the 'round-up,' when stock is taken, the cattle are branded, and such full-grown cattle gathered into a herd as are suitable for market; and the departure of the herds for market or port—times of hard work and severe strain for all concerned. In the south there is but one annual round-up; on the more civilised ranges of Wyoming, the Dakotas, Colorado, and Montana there are two round-ups in the year—one early in spring, to brand the calves and ascertain the losses during winter, another in autumn, when the steers over three years old are separated from the main herd and sent for sale. Besides the branding of ownership there is a special 'road-branding' of cattle for identification 'on the trail.' The cattle in the south are still mainly the coarse, long-horned Texan breed; in the north-west the original long-horns have been crossed with fine-grade northern cattle, and produce larger and less wild animals and finer beef.
See Brinson, The Beef Bonanza (1880); Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail (1889).