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Cattle, horses and sheep are largely reared in the southern prairie region on ranches or smaller holdings.
Before the Civil War of 1895-1898 the capital invested in sugar estates was greater by half than that reprerented by tobacco and coffee plantations, live-stock ranches and other farms. Since that time fruit and live-stock interests have increased.
The exclusion had much to do with making the huge single crop ranches unprofitable and in leading to their replacement by small farms and varied crops.
Agriculture had its beginning in wheat-raising on great ranches, from 50,000 even to several hundred thousand acres in extent.
A large part of the Great Plains to the east of the Rockies was taken up as farms in the decade 1880 1890; abandoned afterwards, because of its aridity, to stock grazing; and reconverted from ranches into farms when a system of dry farming had proved its tillage practicable.