A ranch (from /Mexican Spanish) is an area of land, including various structures, given primarily to ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle and sheep. It is a subtype of farm. These terms are most often applied to livestock-raising operations in Mexico, the Western United States and Western Canada, though there are ranches in other areas.Spiegal, S., Huntsinger, L., Starrs, P.F., Hruska, T., Schellenberg, M.P., McIntosh, M.M., 2019. Rangeland livestock production in North America, in: Squires, V.R., Bryden, W.L. (Eds.), Livestock: Production, Management Strategies, and Challenges. NOVA Science Publishers, New York, New York, USA.For terminologies in Australia and New Zealand, see Station (Australian agriculture) and Station (New Zealand agriculture). People who own or operate a ranch are called ranchers, cattlemen, or stockgrowers. Ranching is also a method used to raise less common livestock such as horses, elk, American bison, ostrich, emu, and alpaca.Holechek, J.L., Geli, H.M., Cibils, A.F. and Sawalhah, M.N., 2020. Climate Change, Rangelands, and Sustainability of Ranching in the Western United States. Sustainability, 12(12), p.4942.
Ranches generally consist of large areas, but may be of nearly any size. In the western United States, many ranches are a combination of privately owned land supplemented by grazing leases on land under the control of the federal Bureau of Land Management or the United States Forest Service. If the ranch includes arable or irrigated land, the ranch may also engage in a limited amount of farming, raising crops for feeding the animals, such as hay and feed grains.
Ranches that cater exclusively to tourists are called guest ranches or, colloquially, "dude ranches". Most working ranches do not cater to guests, though they may allow private hunters or outfitters onto their property to hunt native wildlife. However, in recent years, a few struggling smaller operations have added some dude ranch features such as horseback rides, cattle drives, and guided hunting to bring in additional income. Ranching is part of the iconography of the "Wild West" as seen in Western movies and rodeos.
Etymology The term ranch comes from the Spanish term rancho, itself from the term rancharse, which means “to get ready, to settle in a place, to pitch camp”, itself from the military French term se ranger (to arrange oneself, to tidy up), from the Frankish hring, which means "ring" or "circle". It was, originally, vulgarly applied in the 16th century to the provisional houses of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
The term evolved differently throughout the Spanish speaking world:
In Mexico, it evolved to mean a cattle farm, station or estate, a pasturing land or agricultural settlement where cattle are raised. Originally used to refer to a hamlet or village where cattle is raised and where the land is sowed; and to a small independent cattle farm, or to a cattle station, an area of land for cattle raising, that is dependent of a hacienda, a large cattle estate.
In Spain it retained its military origin, being defined as: the group of people, typically soldiers, who eat together in a circle; a mess hall. “Rancho” in Spain is also the: “food prepared for several people who eat in a circle and from the same pot.” It was also defined as a family reunion to talk any particular business. While “ranchero” is defined as the: “steward of a mess”, the steward in charge of preparing the food for the “rancho” or mess-hall.
In South America, specifically in Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Brasil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the term is applied to a modest humble rural home or dwelling, a cottage; while in Venezuela it’s an improvised, illegal dwelling, generally poorly built or not meeting basic habitability requirements; a shanty or slum house.
Ranch occupations
The person who owns and manages the operation of a ranch is usually called a rancher, but the terms cattleman, stockgrower, or stockman are also sometimes used. If this individual in charge of overall management is an employee of the actual owner, the term foreman or ranch foreman is used. A rancher who primarily raises young stock sometimes is called a cow-calf operator or a cow-calf man. This person is usually the owner, though in some cases, particularly where there is absentee ownership, it is the ranch manager or ranch foreman.
The people who are employees of the rancher and involved in handling livestock are called a number of terms, including cowhand, ranch hand, and cowboy. People exclusively involved with handling horses are sometimes called wranglers. Generally, ranch employees have also been referred to as hands or ranch-hands. This stems from 1500 English terminology that referred to manual labor workers as the same name and accentuated the employee's physical job priorities.
Origins of ranching
The most remote origins of a form of ranching, date back to the 1100s in Spain where livestock raising had developed mainly around the raising of sheep and, by the 1200s, the establishment of a system of transhumance being regulated by the powerful Mesta, an association of sheep barons and shepherds created by King Alfonso X of Castile. Although other livestock species, like cattle, existed, their importance, value and herd sizes were lesser than sheep, even before Roman times. The importance of sheep was such that, even in the accounting books for payment of livestock taxes, the serviciadores (servicemen) reduced cows to sheep for accounting purposes, typically six sheep for every cow or horse; because there were so few cows and horses, they did not detract from the value of the figures. Sheep were also used as currency, and currency itself, like the silver solidus, had the equivalency of one sheep. Sheep and sheepherding had such a cultural and economic impact on the culture of Spain that the country was known as un pais de pastores ("a country of shepherds").
During the Reconquista, the lands being reclaimed by the Christians had been depopulated. Because these lands were still prone to raids and attacks by the Muslims even after being reconquered, agriculture was out of the question. Instead, livestock raising, predominantly sheep, became the solution to repopulate the land as the animals could easily be moved to a safer place in case of an attack. This led to the emergence of the “pastor a caballo” or horse-mounted shepherd. Called caballeros villanos (knights-villein) or pastores guerreros (warrior shepherds), these were the highest class of peasants and were allowed to have a horse. They, on horseback, could defend the frontier from attacks, easily herd the animals to a safer place, and could do their own raids on Muslim lands.
As for the land itself, it was organized and highly regulated into various types due to a scarcity of pasturelands. There were: pastos comunales (communal lands), private lands, baldíos (vacant wooded areas) and dehesas, or fenced lands that could be privately owned. All these pasturelands could be used for a fee or tribute, unless used by the surrounding villagers in the case of communal lands, or could be rented to livestock owners. Most Spanish ganaderos (livestock owners) did not own their own land, having to rent or lease the land by paying tribute or rent. Most pasturelands had restrictions on the amount of livestock that could enter, or even the type of species, as in the dehesas boyales, or dehesas used only for oxen. A montazgo, a tribute or tax paid for the transit of livestock through villages, towns, lands or mountains, was also paid.
History in North America
The origins of what we know today as ranching in North America date back to the 16th century when the Spaniards introduced cattle and horses to Mexico. Livestock raising had diverged in Mexico from what it had been in Spain due to an over abundance of land and, because of the rapid multiplication of livestock, an over abundance of cattle and horses. In a letter to the King of Spain in 1544, Cristóbal de Benavente, prosecutor of Mexico (fiscal de audiencia), wrote that livestock of all species were multiplying rapidly, almost double every 15 months.
Although all livestock species took root and multiplied rapidly, there was a preponderance of cattle, so much so that, soon after, there was more cattle in Mexico than in Spain. According to Spanish army captain, Bernardo de Vargas Machuca, out of all the kingdoms, Mexico was where cattle were the most abundant. Cattle had multiplied so much that, just in the Sotavento region of Veracruz alone, cattle had quintupled to around 2.5 million head in 1630 from half a million in 1570.
The Franciscan friar, Antonio de Ciudad Real, who accompanied friar Alonso de Ponce to New Spain in 1584, argued that the reason why cattle was so abundant in the Province of Mexico was because it was easier to produce and raise, at less cost and with less work, because pasturelands were abundant, the climate was temperate and there were no wolves or other predators to prey upon them as in Spain, multiplying so much that it seemed to be native to the land, that many men were able to brand more than 30 thousand calves a year.
Because it was a much greater territory, land was plentiful, thus, any Spanish laws that were applied back in Spain regarding pasturelands and land ownership were never applied. Initially, a generalized common grazing regime was established, in which all vacant land was free and open to all, as was the stubble after the harvest. This regime allowed cattle to multiply in a semi-wild state, with minimal intervention from man, diverging, once again, from Spanish tradition.
However, over time, the authorities were forced to recognize a somewhat stable occupation of the land by the first cattle barons. The first sites or sitios intended for cattle and other livestock were called Estancias (stays, stations), and were given in the form of grants upon verification of the occupation or "purchase" made from the Indians. These grants did not grant ownership, but rather the usufruct of the land, and were revocable if the beneficiary was absent. Thus, the cattle-barons reserved the exclusive use of the land, without actually owning it.
There were two types of estancias: estancias de ganado mayor (cattle and horse estancias) and estancias de ganado menor (sheep & goat estancias). Both types had to be square in shape, going from east to west. Cattle estancias had to be 1 league in length, on each side, or 5000 varas or 1750 hectares, approximately 4400 acres. While sheep and goat estancias had to measure 3333 varas in length or 780 hectares, approximately 2000 acres. The caballeria, the piece of land allotted to a Caballero and his mount, while not defined as estancia, had to be 43 hectares or approximately 110 acres. The Estancias de labor were the ones that combined livestock raising with agriculture. However, the estancias far exceeded the established limits, since fencing the land was prohibited (unlike in Spain), allowing the cattle to graze freely in the intermediate spaces and, thus, allowing the cattle-barons to annex the land. Most Cattle barons usually possessed a set of estancias that were situated side by side, encompassing a vast area. Estancia was also the name of the houses or “cottages” where the vaqueros (cowherds) would gather.
By 1554, there were 60 estancias de ganado mayor in the Valley of Toluca in central Mexico, with more than 150,000 head of cattle and horses. It’s estimated that just in central Mexico, there were around 1.3 million head of cattle by 1620. Between 1550 and 1619, 103 cattle estancias (+444,789 acres), 118 sheep estancias (approximately 200,000 acres); 42 mare estancias (186,000 acres) and 130 caballerías (approximately 14000 acres) were granted in the Huasteca region of San Luis Potosí.