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Jim Bill Anderson Interview, Part 2 of 2
Metadata |
| Title: | Jim Bill Anderson Interview, Part 2 of 2 |
| Identifier: | anderson_jimbill_2227 |
| Related: | anderson_jimbill_2226 |
| Location: | 4Jc92 |
| Description: | Anderson continues his discussion of ecotourism, as well as water, agriculture, energy, and ranching. |
| Country: | United States | | State: | Texas | | City: | Canadian | | Date: | 2002-10-08 |
| Creators: | Anderson, Jim Bill (interviewee) | | Todd, David (interviewer) | | Weisman, David (interviewer) |
| Source: | Conservation History Association of Texas, Texas Legacy Project Records |
| Language: | en |
| Publisher: | Dolph Briscoe Center for American History |
| Rights: | Dolph Briscoe Center for American History |
| Original Format: | Mini-DV |
The rich media version of this video was created by Gregory Ludwig, April 2008. His work was made possible by the School of Information, University of Texas at Austin and the Institute for Museum & Library Services.
  Contents
 | Interview Start |
| Ecotourism |
 | Water
|
| Relation to Agriculture and Ranching |
| Canadian River |
| Energy
|
| Windmills |
| Biomass Fuels |
| Future
|
| Personal Hopes |
| Ranching
|
| Feed |
| Hormones and Antibiotics |
| Natural vs Organic |
Transcript
 | INTERVIEWEE: Jim Bill Anderson (JBA) INTERVIEWERS: David Todd (DT) and David Weisman (DW) DATE: October 8, 2002 LOCATION: Canadian, Texas
TRANSCRIBERS: Lacy Goldsmith and Robin Johnson REEL: 2226 and 2227 |
| Please note that the recording includes roughly 60 seconds of color bars and sound tone for technical settings at the outset of the recordings.
Note: boldfaced numbers refer to time codes for the VHS tape copy of the interview. "Misc." refers to various off-camera conversation or background noise, unrelated to the interview. |
| DT: Mr. Anderson wewe were talking earlier about how much money some of these eco-tourists can bring to your community. And I was wondering if you could talk
a little bit about thethe scale thethe revenues that you all have been able recognize from developing a little bit of nature tourism? Andand then secondly how you price these experiences
because theyre inin a sense theyre priceless, in another sense they dont require you to put out lot of extra infrastructure. JBA: Wewe monitored as close as we could the first year we did
it, a prairie chicken weekend, the State of Texas told us that you would get a $220, $230 a person per weekend. We were able toto identify 180 and that didnt include maybe some gas and things
they got that we didnt know about. So I mean that numbers real. As far as pricing therewe had, you know, we researched other areas where theyve done some, you know, birding tourism and we
consulted with people who do this for a living, you know, to get a feel for it. II found that at the right audience which is usually somebody that has to travel quite a ways, if you go within
50 to 150 miles, they want to do it for free because they think, you know, thethe birds are there and you didnt do anything to get them and you shouldnt be able to, you know, charge for
it. |
| But wevetalking to consultants, consulting I mean the people whove come and before they leave have them critique us and tell us what theyve found other
places. And weve just, I guess gone about it in that direction. Andand then one way you can capture some of the dollars for some of the things, the stars and the prairie, just the sense of
openness is if you have a place for them to stay or you provide meals or that kind of thing. DT: ImIm interested inin knowing what your attitude is towards inviting these people to come. Do you
want them to be visitors to your community, guests in your home but not residents in your town or would you like them to come and stay and raise a family have a business here? |
| JBA: Well to sustain what we have here, youll have to haveit would be nice if some would stay. ItitI dont see us being overwhelmed because of ourour distance
from major population centers, the fact that werewere surrounded by private land, it would be hard toto dodo a lot of development. Wevein Canadian weve put in the high speed data lines to
encourage, you know, sosome people who work on the internet out of their homes to maybe be able to, you know, come here and live andinterested in this kind of lifestyle. As far as becoming aa
suburb of aof a theme park, II just dont see that happening. You know, maybe Im wrong but I dont. But yes, we would like to have mainly visitors butbut, you know, weve also enjoyed, you know,
some people whove moved here and some people who are talking about moving here just tobecause theyve discovered us. DT: Im curious, it seems like one of the things thatthat yall value as
part of your lifestyle is the experience of living in a small town JBA: Yeah. |
| DT: andand looking at the experience of some what larger towns but, you know, Fredericksburg or Austin come to mind where they became very popular, people
moved there and it dramatically changed the experience of those who JBA: Yeah. DT: lived there. How do you avoid either thethe traffic problems that large cities like Austin sort of thisI think
you mentioned theme park aspect to life in Fredericksburg now? JBA: Well II think one its just simply going to be our location. Were not close to Houston or San Antonio oror Dallas. Theyre
close enough thatthat well be overwhelmed by, you know, people having weekend homes orand that kind of thing. I personally would not like to see that and Im sure they didnt either to a certain
extent. But its going to go where its going to go and thats something I thought about, you know, when we started this. |
| But its going to be a little bit limiting in the fact that the nature tourism aspect of what were trying to do here is not a high volume, you know, business.
Theres atheres a large number of people who enjoy it, a large number of people that come but itits not like having an outlet mall or something like that, you know. I think itll be self-limiting
somewhat, you know. |
| DT: Do you find that youreas youre starting to show that theres some revenue that you can get from this that people are starting to build businesses or
become consultants or become guides or whatever to sort of take advantage of this? JBA: Yes. II weve had a young man move here I think I mentioned earlier from Austin to do consulting, whether
its fromon the Internet oror assessment of what you have on your land orand hes quite good. Moved his family here. They live in Miami. Weve had things come in anticipation of the birding trail
thats going to be coming through Canadian. |
| The State of Texas does I think the greater coast of birding trail they have on the coast, I turn some thousand maps handed out in a year, you know. Well the
extension of thats going to be coming through Canadian, the high plains going to call it nature trail not just birding trail but High Plains Nature Trail. So yeah theres been little
bakery and beenwe went from having a dairy queen for our finest dining to having two or three nice restaurants. Andand thats been anticipation and promotion of Canadian and just people who come
visit. Wereeven before thethe birding trail has not come, the maps being done, it should be out this spring, its about eight months behind. But ititsits in the works. But just the promotion of
thethat weve received theoff the birding trail map, people knowing its being put together and articles been written about us, we get a fairly decent amount of people who come from towns within
200 miles to go to the movie and eat and just drive around, just look at the town. |
| DT: Youve made a lot ofof personal commitment, investment in trying to shepherd this town towards a more sustainable direction. But I understand that in the
last four or five years, theres also been sort of anotheranother direction where people are trying to develop and sellexport the groundwater resources that are here, part of the Ogallala
aquifer. Can you explain whatwhats happened there, how that came about and whatwhat your opinions are? JBA: Well, of course in my mind it would be a disaster if the Ogallala were
deprdepleted. Iwhat Ive read about it and what I know about it is if it ever getsactually comes about, the restrictions are such that, you know, they wont do that. And I hope thats correct.
Maybe I was just reading the wrong persons propaganda I dont know but thats the information I got and I just fell softly. I guess I cant say that somebody doesnt have the right toto do that
except to a point where impacts everyone around them, you know. You cantI dont think you have the right to negatively impact your neighbors or your fellow citizens with some of these
activities, I just dont but well see. |
| DT: Do you think theres a consensus in Canadian about what is the right way to handle this or JBA: Most people Canadian are not really for it that Ive talked
to because thisthis area before the groundwater waswas discovered was a jumping off place. I mean youyou did your best to get from Arkansas or Missouri across the plains of the panhandle to
Colorado and hope that you found water and avoided the Indians on the way, you know. And so thatsthat has certainly changed this whole area and made it inhabitable, you know. When they start
using groundwater I, you know, I have a problem with that II have a bigger problem withwith these programs that encourage over production of grain withthrough irrigation and then, you know,
ImIm not sure I understand that butbut thats just a personal view. |
| DT: Do you think theres more water mining that gets done because of the subsidized agriculture then there is JBA: Oh I think absolutely. DT: (inaudible)
municipal demand in Amarillo or (?)? JBA: Irrigating corn is an enormous user (?). Enormous. DT: Can you give me an example of the scale? |
| JBA: You know, I should be able to but I dont want to say no. You know, IIveI mean, Ive read about it, Ive looked into itsitsits astonishing. You know,
Amarillosisis nothing relatively speaking their consumption of water compared toto irrigated corn in the plains of Texas, high plains of Texas. Its a crop that requires a lot of water.
DT: Whats the trend now, status of the Ogallala [Aquifer] in this area (inaudible)? JBA: Well itsits stable to declining. Its not were on thethe right end of the slope. I mean itit migrates us
away. But that doesnt mean you should ignore thethe situation. Some of this is going to be taken care of through economics. The lifting costs for some of these irrigated farms are going to
bebecome such that it wont be feasible. And thank goodness, I think technology will take care of a lot it. Therestheres some of ittheres Milos being grown right now that arewill produce close
to as much grain per acre, not as much but close to as corn. And Milo requires a fraction of the water. |
| Theres food grade Milos being developed that could replace corn to be grown in these areas. I mean theyretheyre doing a lot of work constantly. I mean theyre
takingI know a research station thats takingtheres a grass called Eastern Gamma, tripsicum, thats aits a distant cousin of Maize. Theyretheyre doing a lot of genetic work on that toto hybridize
some of these maizes or gracorns, will use a fraction of water they use and be able to sustain temperature extremes we have and still produce. So technology saved us before. Hopefully itll do
it in this case, you know, in a lot of areas. But that, you know, the water thing is aits a complex issue. DT: Another water question II understand that the Canadian River has changed pretty
dramatically over the years especially since Lake Meredith iswas put in. Can you attest to that? JBA: Oh yeah. DT: Or what do you think? |
| JBA: I mean, well in the mid 50s or when I wasbegan grade school, you know, in 56 or 7, I remember in the summer playing in the Canadian Rivers is a big wide
ribbon of sand, you know, half mile wide just (?) sand and itand theyou could hear it at night before the days of central heat and air that we had. You could hear it roaring in the spring at
night, you know, from half a mile, three quarters of a mile awayaway just huge amounts of water going down the river. I thought Meredith up until a year or two ago had altered it and completely
changed it. Ive been told since then what Meredith did is actually take back to its original state because before there was over grazing, before there were fields that wereplowed fields without
terraces and you had a lonand you had a dense stand ofof native range grasses. Grass is one of the best dams there is as far as holding rainfall. The river was a little narrow ribbon of water
withwith grasses and willows and things growing right up to the edge of the bank. |
| When you over graze some of the prairies, when you plowed up some of the flat areas and didnt terrace them, you had this big scouring affect ofof huge
runoff. Andand it changed the river to what it was in the 50s and 60s. Now its gone back to what it was originally. And that was what I was told by someone who studied diaries and such of some,
you know, the early Spanish explorers. Andandand if you conif you consider it, it makes sense. And weve gonenot just Meredith, but weve gone back now to the range practices largely are much
better than they were, the fields are terraced, the erodable lands we have planted back to grass. So weve stopped a lot ofof runoff. DW: What has the Canadian River meant culturally to
the area? Is itis it first (?) generation swimming hole of (inaudible)? Does it have a role beyond just water and irrigation? (inaudible) |
| JBA: Okay. The Canadian River II its just part ofof your being if you live here, I mean, that where youve had picnics, thats where you swam in the summer,
you know. We have people nowwe have some kayaks who float down the river and just love it because well a nature consultant, a tourism consultant, does try this and II would think that people
would want to be on some scenic river in Colorado or such. But he said no I mean kayakers like to go all kinds of rivers and all kinds of areas and a winding prairie river is just something you
cant do just anywhere. So weve had some pretty enthusiastic people doing that. But the Canadian Rivers just, I dont know, thats just where you headed in the afternoons in the summer or on
the weekends to go do whatever you want to do. At least thats where I went. I hunted a lot of imaginary Indians on the Canadian River. Thank goodness I never ran into any of them but I had a
lot of fun riding the horse around, you know, all day long up and down the river. DW: Is it still possible? Is that still done or is that just nostalgia? |
| JBA: It would still be possible to do thisto do it. People lifestyles have changed to the point that a lot of kids dont know about it, they dont think about
it. You know, they run to town to play baseball, they jump on a four-wheeler they, you know, watch videos, I dont know. II dont see it much with children that I used to. Its been interesting to
me that Ive appreciated our Hispanic population when you drive across the river bridge, theyre the ones down there having a picnic and the kids playing in the water and the grandmother and the
grandfather and theand theand parents, you know. They seem to appreciate it more than those of use whove lived here all our life. DT: I had another thought and question, it has to do with
water resources and it may look back a few years, a number of years. Do you have any memories yourself; youre probably too young but maybe from your parents, grandparents of what he dust bowl
was like in this area? If it even touched this community? |
| JBA: Oh it touched it. But it was usually somebody elses dust cause we werewe were largely a native range here. I mean, there were wheat fields around but
notI mean IIve seen the pictures that are just, you know, give you a chill. And weit was in the 70s, we had a year or two there that had severe drought in Colorado and they had a lot of farm
practices I guess that encouraged this. We would have thethe street lights come on at noon a time or two but it was Colorado dirt. It wasnt our dirt, you know. And so that gave you some inkling
it wasnt near as bad asas it was when you actually were in the heart of the dust bowl. DT: What did you hear or see (inaudible) JBA: Oh just DT: (inaudible) |
| JBA: I mean people were talking about putting wet towels around their windows andandandand children, you know, putting (?) at night when they put them in
bed, covering the whole bed with a sheet, you know, where they could breathe better. It was nasty. DT: What was the cause of it? JBA: The cause of it was a long-term drought coupled with the
farming practices of the time. You know, Ipeople would say it would be really hard for us to have a dust bowl now even though you could have a drought for some point andand have some problems
with production but it would be hard to have a dust bowl cause you wouldnt have thethe vast areas of ground that was plowed bare. I mean for instance driving to my home its 27 or 8 mile drive,
you see a few wheat fields, they never blow. |
| I mean you can be havingour March winds are awful. Thats another reason we wont have people move here for any large amount of time. But anyway, you know, 30,
40 miles an hour just day after day and you just dont see wheat fields blowing and things like they used to cause of the stubbles on the ground or theythey fallowed it and has trash on top of
it, you know, old residue thats very encouraging. Itsits technological advances, thats all it is. |
| DT: Hearing you talk about 30, 40 mile an hour winds andand some technical advances, II noticed that not too far west of here, theres a whole string of wind
mills, can you tell how those came about? JBA: Yeah, I dont really know a story about that exactly other than if you look of a map of average daily wind speeds, we rank right up with the
Foothills of California or the Northeast Coast. |
| So obviously it was a place to get that done. II some of that comes about because ofofof, you know, laws, you know, where youre required to produce a certain
amountyour utility companies are required to use a certain amount of itof electricity or energy gengenerated through sustainable sources. Thats something else were pursuing. Its not exactly
what you asked me but I think were going to get a grant to I believe we are, we dont have it, yet to grow biomass fuels. Some of these farms that are worn out, tired, you know, you could
possibly but them back to a native switch grass or some of these high volume native grasses and with only I think itsits a very small, eight or ten percent of the mix if its a biomass fuel like
a pelleted grass mixed with high sulfur coal, itit cleans it up to the point you dont even have to have scrubbers. Itsits quiteits pretty interesting. Thatthat research has been done. DT: Its a
kind of perennial agriculture (inaudible)? JBA: Yes. DT: (inaudible) JBA: Theres no farming involved. Once you get the stand there, you just harvest it. Andwhich I like that. Its very low
input. DT: Well maybe this would be a good time to talk about the future. Whwhat sort of challenges and opportunities do you see from a conservation perspective coming in the next 10, 20
longer years? |
| JBA: Well it thinkIm again seeing more and more which delights me, people realizing with good conservation practices, it pays off physically. And II could
see us going more and more to maybe some biomass fuels to supplementif you couldinin fact if could take a biomass fuel and use high sulfur coal cleanly, this country has a lot of high sulfur
coal, which isits just too expensive to burn now because to clean up the air after it iis quite expensive. So I mean II see things like that happening. Technology I mean theI just believe in it
maybe the mymy time I spent around the range research station and I see all the things theyre doing. |
| But I see them taking some of the genetic aspects out of native plants and introducing them intoto farm forages and the requiring less fertilizer, less
water, less weed control. You know, I just think those things grow on the horizon. And Im very optimistic about that. And the fact too that were getting away or at least some of us are, getting
away more and more from just producing a commodity in agriculture, you know, just wheat or beef or were getting in more into value added products where you assure someone and insure
thatthatthat theres no hormones, no antibiotics. You know, people have proven over and over by the growth of whole foods that theyre willing to pay for that. |
| And thats a lot more profitable than just trying to produce the maximum amount you can produce off an acre of land, that you do something more sustainable
and get more for it. And I see that trend coming fast. DT: You as aas a rancher consider going to a grassfed business or JBA: The what business? DT: grassfed beef business? |
| JBA: Were already tinkering with that. Notnot just grassfed but largely grassfed and finished on grain. People still want the grain finish if they everif
theyd be willing to buy it, thats not Id be happy to do it. But strictly grassfed even finished on legumes still has a little bit of aa like elk taste, you know, it has a different taste that
weve acquired from eating grain fed meat. But we are actively pursuing aaa all natural, you know, no hormones, no antibiotics or any animals whos ever been given a shot will be tagged and put
through your conventional system and DT: Does that change your operation a lot (inaudible)? JBA: Yeah it makes it profitable. It does. DW: Explain that because I think that many people JBA:
Well DW: have the idea that organic is nothing but trouble |
| JBA: Well organic quite frankly is a lot of trouble, but people are willing to pay for it. And Im not saying organic. Im saying natural, all natural to doto
truly do organic, you would have to be able to document that the grain they were fed or any supplements they were given had never been sprayed for pests or, you know, or herbicides orand thats
quite hard to do. There are people though that are producing organic grain now for that market to be fed to animals to produce organic animals. Thethe thing thatthat were attempting to do
andand I believe its going to work, we just got started a few months ago, is bypassing your conventional production systems. Where you raise a calf, get him as big as you can get him then just
(?) the auction part. Were really not rewarded for good husbandry. I mean he brings the same per pound really as something thatthats maybe not had anot been cared for properly, you know. And so
also believe thethat theres an economic reward inin caring for the animal human humanely. |
| I mean, so thats why were trymy wife and I are and working with some people werewerewere establishing a source of red meat thats been handled humanely, been
produced primarily on native range butbut no antibiotics, no hormones that kind of thing. And charging andand you charge a lot more for it but you bypass youryour large packers, you bypass your
large wholesalers and youto really capture that, most benefit from that, you really need to sell directly to the consumer. DT: Do you have your own brand? JBA: Yes. And you can even develop
your own brand you canIm working with a group that theyre going to handle animals humanely, theyre going to avoid any antibiotics or steroids. But then they will go through a packing planta
small packing plant that wont have our names on it individually, but it will have a brand name on it. |
| DT: Is this a regional (?) or is this statewide? JBA: Im doing both. Theone of the things Im working with isis going to be a regional thing. Thenthen Ill
also going to try attempt to do it just me individually. Just our ranch or I am going to do itI dont intend to do. DW: What are the criteria you have to decide on for what you would
consider to be humane treatment as compared to what might happen otherwise? JBA: Well thethe way Ithe mosthow can I say it? If you avoid the large-scale corporate production systems, for
instance when we worked cattle and Ive done it for years, I dont allow hot shots. Because I timed it one time and this just isnt all just warm and fuzzy, its because it works. If you dont upset
them and you dont scare them and you have your facility designed right you can actually process them better, you know, deworm them, give them their vaccines, whatever youre going to do, quicker
than you can by scaring the heck out of them or using the hot shots or, you know. Cause they just walk through and everythings calm and everything works well and so its more efficient. |
| So to me the humane aspect would come in to be handled like nearly all producers I know handle their cattle anyway. You would use a small feed yard where
theres not aa large scale, you know, they have individual attention almost, you know. Theyre given plenty of room in the pens if you feed them out that a way. And then you go to a small packer
where the animals are just handled easily and handled gently and, you know, itsbecause its not, youre being paid more for them therefore you can slow down, take your time and do it right.
DT: I think said that to try and handle thesethese cattle without using antibiotics or hormones, if theyre going through a feedlot, how you going to do it without antibiotics well and I guess
without hormones youre going to require more time to grow out the cattle. |
| JBA: It requires a little more time. But the particular cattle were going to be using are kind of a lean animal anyway. Andand its not efficient to try to
feed them to a laryou know, for a long time because their genetically kind a lean and lean andandand not to large. The way you can avoid antibiotics through the feed yard is through a proactive
approach. From birth on, you make sure they have their proper vaccines just like you would your children. Youyou use the proper vaccines, use them in a timely manner so theyre not so
susceptible to diseases, you know. Theyre healthy and theyre vibrant and theyand theres a little bitthere is somewhat of a misnomer, not every animal thats in a feedlot gets a vaisis
given antibiotics or, you know. If you slow down the production a little bit and dont feed them such high concentrates, they dont need antibiotics in their feed to offset, you know, their
system being put in fast gear, high gear, you know. So yes it can be done. Itit requires just a little bit more time and just a littlea few more cents per pound to do it but youre more than
paid for it. |
| DT: Is this sort of an economic decision of yours do you think itsits the right thing to do? JBA: Well there again Ive never been able to separate those two.
I mean thats just the way I feel about everything. I dontI dont knowIve found that if you do the right thing, its the economic thing to do, you know. I guess I haventI guess somebody could tell
me when that isnt the case but Im not aware of it, you know, whether its encouraging your native range toto be vibrant andand healthy so you can get more pounds of gainI mean, I just, you know,
thats just one case I keep going back to oror giving the animals their vaccines as a calf where their immune to a lot of these diseases, where you dont have to doctor them, you know, I just
dont see. But yeah its the right thing to do, you know, its economically rewarding so that makes it doubly good I guess. DT: Yesterday II got the nice chance toto meet your grandchildren
andand theyretheyre quite young. JBA: Theyre quite active too. |
| DT: Theyre quite active. Im curious as they grow up andand you try and explain your way of life and your attitudes towards conservation, how do you explain
where youre coming from and where they might be going towards? JBA: Well I suppose the same way that I received my education. Youwith our lifestylethe ranching lifestyle, youyoure with your
parents and not other friends all the time. I mean thats who your with mostly andand so youyou get a lot ofyou have a lot of things that are engrained in you. You have no idea why you do it or
where it came from because you learned it from the first day you understood what they were doing. And for instance my little grandson just turned three, I have him saying, I hate trash. He
picks up cans and paper and puts them in the trashcan. |
| So I guess you just pass those things on. II assure you by the time hes ten years old he wont know why he hates trash. But Iand I hope he still does.
But I mean thats just an example. Iits just engrained in you and youyou know, its just part of you. Because the land I mean itsits upsetting when theres a drought or when theres a fire or a
wildfire at the wrong time of year. I mean fires not all bad but I mean its just part of it, you know, I dont know. DT: You mentioned fire; do you do any prescribed burning? JBA: Weve
done some yeah. DT: Why do you do that? |
| JBA: To get something II did it onwell I mentioned earlier IdId segregated my bottomlands and meadows from the uplands and theyd all been grazed as one for
years. And so I wanted to get it back to a stateI wanted to clean it up, you know. When you do that, you cant manage those two kinds of grass systems asas one. And so one of them had suffered.
The bottomlands had become overwhelmed withwith grasses that were rotting and falling over and actually it was decreasing. It was in a declining state. So I used fire to clean it up and get it
back to, you know, aaaa state thatswhere its now increasing. DT: Can you describe what its like setting this fire and doing back burns and so on? JBA: Yeah it makes your hands sweat and it
scares the heck out of you. I actuallyI attemptedI had done a little bit of it and it got away from me one time on my own. Its a science and even though Ive read about it and talked to people
who did it and went through all the proper steps, you have to do it to do it right. You have to have some experience, real life experience. So the second time I did some prescribed burning, I
paid a gentlemen a couple dollars an acre to do it and he made it look simple. |
| DT: What time of year did you do it? JBA: This was spring. You need to burn a little green. Its when thethe grass has begun to put out chutes. And I
have friends that live in the foothill of Kansas and they burn every year have for generations, you know. And so theyve always told me burn it with the green and thats what this gentlemen
recommended, right as it starts to have a little bit of leafleaf growth, you know burn it. DT: What did it look likehow did the land respond after you burned? JBA: Well the land responded
by of course a lot of these speciestheres these species that were established on this prairie were established under grazing of, you know, elk and buffalo and also by fire andand itit responded
quite favorably. The grasses I wanted to increase, increased and some of the stuff that I would call junk grass it was just coming in, went down hill. It doesnt like fire and when you open the
ground up and youryour (?) switch and your Big Blue andand Little Blue and all those, they just choked them out, just took over. |
| Its pretty impressive actually, did it really quick. We havent done asmaybe as much burn as we should because the ranch we lease is a main part of our
ranching is pretty fragile sandy country andand if you burned it off and you happened to have one of those 60 days of no rain, it could be quite a mess, you know. DT: Earlier you mentioned
buffalo and elk as being some of the traditional herbivores around here. Is there any interest either on your part or others toto reintroduce those or do you find thatthat cattle is most
efficient way to JBA: Well cattles by far the most efficient. For one thing buffalo are so hard to handle, you know. Theyweve had friends whove attempted to useto have a few buffalo around, if
nothing else just for token thing andand they have a tendency in the spring if the old bull (?) off a young bull, theyll just walk through a fence, just push it down and go somewhere. I mean,
its just such a strong, natural tendency. To keep them where you want to keep them you have to keep themyou have to build such an expensive fence; you cant fence off a very large
area. |
| You know, unless youI mean I know theres ranchers in the Dakotas and such that put together large blocks of land andand do it and I guess with some success I
dont know. Elk, I havent heard considered. The cattle aretheyre easier to manage. You can do everything in such a timely manner and, you know, III personally would not be interested in
buffalo. DT: And have you done any particular breeding to try and get this lean animal thatthat you have? JBA: No what we did is we have a few cattle that are calledI guess were called
sport cattle. Theyre Corrientes. Corrientes and Texas Longhorns are typically thethe same animal. They came over with Columbus on the ships. Theyre called Criollo cattle from the mountains, the
Andalusian mountains of Spain. |
| Theyre a small hearty animal and the explorers used them because if you put them in the hull of a ship, when you got where you were going, a lot themenough
of them would be alive that you would have fresh meat, you know, to take with you as you trekked across the country. And so anyway we had some of these andand would use them on some like the
Canadian River bottoms or some of the lands that werentdidnt produce good gains on your traditional cattle would use these because you sell them by the head. Andand rodeothats what they
use in rodeos in order to rope, you know the head and healers, they use these Corrientes. Andand so cutting horse people cause theyre athletic animalscutting horse like to train their horses on
them and they really have quite a good life. I mean better than some of your beef animals actually. |
| But naturally we started this (?) bunch toto use to graze some of these nonless productive lands. There was a group I got to know about and became acquainted
with who were putting together a marketing plan plan on the meat because Corriente beef or Longhornthese are actually Longhorn breeders but like I say, theyre the same animal
basicallydiscovered that the beef isahas less cholesterol and aboand about the same fat content as a skinless chicken breast. And through university studies at Clemson, New Mexico State, they
found it to be tender andand palatable. And so thats kind of all evolved since I actually got the cattle for other reasons. |
| I was looking for a nona source of income that wasnt tied to production agriculture and sport cattle or not, it doesnt matter to those people what the price
of beef are. They pay so much a head or lease themI like to lease mine out because I like to control who has them and where they go to someplace where theyre treated right, you know. If they
rope these animals and they do it correctly, it doesnt hurt them. You know, they have protectorsprotectors over their head and their ears and, you know, they dont jerk them down like they used
to. As a matter of fact, its against the rules now to jerk them hard. Which is a good thing. So DT: Did you ride rodeo? JBA: No. DT: In your early days? |
| JBA: No. No never no. Just ranching. I rode milk (?) calves andand young colts but it was all at home. It wasnt in a rodeo arena. DT: I have one more
question and Im sure you may have things to add but II always try to ask people if theres a place that they always enjoyed visiting that gives them some sort of peace, serenity or comfort? Is
there on that you could describe for us? JBA: Well the thing I do or the thing that my wife sends me to do sometimes is catch a horse and go ride around and look at the condition of theof the
grasses andand things on the ranch andandand be gone half a day. I cant come back for half a day. And she does that because, you know, spouses tend to take the brunt of peoples ill moods and
things. Soand that helps a lot. If we go anywhere that we enjoy and thank goodness she feels the same way I do, its like the Flint hills of Kansas, the Sand Hills of Nebraska. Its prairie land.
Thats what we love. |
| DT: (inaudible) JBA: Yes and so weve also found that its easier to just stay here and just enjoy it. Wellwell pack a some Sunday afternoon in the spring,
well take a sandwich and drive up the North River Road for two hours and come back down the South River Road for two hours and just look at thewhat we have here because we have everything from
cap rock to rolling sand hills to, you know, we got quite a few different ecosystems andandand areas in a relatively small place. DT: Sounds like a good place. Thanks for telling us about your
life here. Anything youd like to add? |
| JBA: No. No Im teasing. No other than, you know, I am positive about the directions agricultures taking. I mean people get discouraged about some of the
production agriculture and they get discouraged about some people who dont care for their animals or their land like they should but for Petes sake this is a newI mean they were trading stocks
in Wall Street before this place was even settled. So I mean, if you put it in that perspective, we made a lot of strides in the last 100 years and I dont see any reason to stop doing it andand
to learn to cooperate andand profit from whats around you without altering it much. DT: Good advice. Thank you. End of Reel 227 End of Interview with Jim Bill Anderson |
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