The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 35, July 1931 - April, 1932 Page: 196
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
$75; and 2 hands, $100. The range foremen continue to draw
$100 a month instead of $125 until May, 1899. The ordinary hand
remains on the $25 basis, however, until August, 1908, at which
time $30 again becomes the wage.3
An analysis of the payrolls to determine whether or not wages
were paid in accordance with the class of work done shows that
such was not always the case. It was true in some instances.
Cooks, for instance, had their profession sufficiently recognized to
have a standard wage scale. As a rule, a wagon cook received the
wage of a top hand. When ordinary hands were getting $30,
wagon cooks got $40. When the wage of ordinary hands went to
$25, wagon cooks received $35. The cook at headquarters was an
aristocrat. He got $50, and was on the same wage scale as a trail
boss. Trail bosses and range foremen were paid in accordance
with the class of work they did, but the kind of work done by the
rank and file of ordinary, first-class and top hands had no connec-
tion with the wages they received. For instance, one finds a $25-
hand and a $40-hand riding bog, or riding fence, scraping tanks,
or working with a branding outfit side by side. For the most part
whether a hand received $25, $30, or $35 a month depended on
the reliability of the individual and the length of time he had been
with the ranch, rather than on the class of work he did.
One would quite naturally suppose that by far the greatest
number of hands on a large ranch would be occupied in handling
the cattle. Such was not the case on the Spur ranch. There were
some seventeen different classes of work to be done; and, in the
list, the matter of working with cattle on the ranch proper ranks
second. If the year 1891 may be taken as a typical one, we find
that approximately 22 per cent of the hands worked on the feed
farm-a rather humdrum life for an aspiring cowboy. Slightly
less than 20 per cent worked with cattle on the ranch (rounding
up and branding). Of the rest, approximately 16 per cent worked
at trail-driving; 11 per cent, on the experiment farm; 10 per cent,
at fence-riding; 5 per cent at cooking; 3 per cent at general work;
2 per cent, trail-riding (preventing herds from the south from trail-
ing across the Spur pastures); 2 per cent, in the capacity of fore-
men; 2 per cent, at horse-wrangling; 2 per cent, outside round-ups;
2 per cent, fixing fence; 1 per cent, hauling hay; 1 per cent, black-
smithing; 1 per cent, tanking; 1 per cent, dairying; and three-
8Ibid.196
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 35, July 1931 - April, 1932, periodical, 1932; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101092/m1/200/: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.