During the fifty-odd years of our operations, many people have worked for us or with us. There are many names and faces that come to my mind and who I will always remember with admiration and with a feeling that I was fortunate to have known them or to have worked with them. Fearing that if I undertake to name them some deserving names may be temporarily overlooked, consequently, I refrain from mentioning any of them.
There have been periods of pleasures and satisfaction in carrying on with a large ranching operation. There have also been times when I would have sold the whole thing for a nickel if a buyer had been present at the right moment. It has not been a bed of roses, and yet, if you once get the fever of live stock raising in your blood you never get rid of it. Bonds, and other securities, are merely pieces of paper which you lick up in a bank box. Land, with growing live stock upon it, is something tangible to work with and develop and which can respond to your efforts and hopes; the more you put yourself into it, the more you get out of it.
Also, it is my belief, gained through years of experience, that there is a fine lot of people who, in one way or another, are engaged in the live stock business. The mere fact that they have this common interest makes them friends, even though they meet infrequently and live many miles apart. Our present general ranch foreman is J. W. (Jack) Morton of Warner, Alberta. He is in his early thirties and is in the middle of his second year with us. He has just come through one winter of a high record snowfall. It is my hope that he, and those around him are building themselves into the ranch history from here on, which my successors can record later.
In thinking back over ranch history, as I do many times, I cannot help but realize that I am getting rather ancient myself and will have to step aside in the near future. Three daughters have been born to my wife and me. The first two we lost in infancy. The third daughter, Phoebe Ogden, loves the ranch and wants one of her own some day. If we had one or two sons, or if a nephew had cared to fit himself into the picture, I might be feeling as though our ranch would pass on into able and willing hands. It is too large and too hazardous a business for a woman to assume. If it is sold either in its entirety, or in parcels, I hope that I can then be still nimble enough to sit on a corral fence and bore some of my cohorts by telling them how things used to be done.
(THE END)
