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Lecture 6 is essentially about how the cattle industry effected and shaped the plains. The beginning of the lecture gives us a picture of the mythic cowboy in an attempt to get some sort of grasp of who the people were that helped shape the plains. The lecture then goes on to discuss the origins of the cattle trade coming primarily from a large cattle surplus in Texas after the civil war. Joseph McCoy became a catalyst in the development of the cattle trade when he realized the principal of supply and demand with regards to cattle. This created the movement of cattle across the plains and as a result helped develop the plains with regards to the creation of new towns and businesses that revolved around cattle and would help to get a stronger foothold on the plains until the railroad would later solidify our spot on the plains. The lecture also covers the cattle towns themselves, specifically Abilene as a model of cattle town evolution. In this section we see how towns would spring up beginning as rough places to be and as time went on through new businesses, farmers, and growing populations would turn cattle towns into more respectable places. The lecture discusses Canadian ranching as well pointing out that it was similar to the American system but different in the sense that the land was not owned but leased by the cattle owners and said cattle owners were generally people that were more well off in life then their counterparts to the south. The lecture then examines the end of the cattle era and the reasons for its ending which included the overstocking of cattle, hard winters, fencing, etc. Last Isern gives us his ideas on the current state of cattle ranching in the country examining the effects and developments of fenced ranching, up-breeding, transient grazing, feed lot development, meat packing, and all of the things that were created as a result. Although he does not come out and say it I believe Isern shows that the cattle industry is evolving and will continue to evolve with advances in technology and ranching techniques that people have not even thought of yet. With how far the cattle industry has come in such little time I wonder what will be the next possible change to it and what kind of developments and results will yield?

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