On Jan 26, 12:48 am, mm wrote:
On 25 Jan 2007 08:30:26 -0800, "dpb" wrote:

....
... more commonly the actual problem was one of
cutting fences for either access to water or moving cattle across
historically open range in the days of the "range wars" ...

This was the start of the wars between the free range chickens and the
gas range chickens.

Or the wars between the free range eggs and the electric skillet eggs.
I can never remember if the chicken or egg wars came first.
....

I like it...

For anybody who is interested I found a brief summary of the range wars
under the title of "Sheep Wars" at

A little background and the section pertinent to this thread follow--

"The so-called sheep wars, conflicts between cattlemen and sheepmen
over grazing rights, took place particularly between the early 1870s
and 1900. Fundamental differences between sheep and cattle meant that
they required different amounts of water, different types of food, and
different manners of herding. Differences in life and equipment of the
cowboy on horseback and the sheepherder on a burro or afoot also made
for antagonisms. The cattleman had priority of establishment in most
areas of Texas and resented encroachment of the sheepman on his domain.
The cattleman was the more aggressive of the antagonists. His methods
of attempting to drive out his rival ranged from intimidation to
violence, directed at both the sheepman and his flock. Nomadic sheepmen
or drifters were attacked by both cattlemen and settled sheepmen
because of their twisting or rolling of fences to allow passage of
their flocks ..."

"After the law of 1884, which made fence-cutting a felony and abolished
the open range, both the cattleman and the sheepman confined their
herds to their own land, and the sheep wars came to an end. Despite the
occasional fights between sheepherders and cattlemen in Texas, the
level of violence never reached that of some other Western states. ..."

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Paul H. Carlson, Texas Woolybacks: The Range Sheep and
Goat Industry (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1982).
Wayne Gard, "The Fence-Cutters," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 51
(July 1947). ...