国家地理:牧野分歧(6)

In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act, which gave settlers title to 160 acres of federal land if they were able to "prove up" on the property by building a house and planting crops. But 160 acres weren't enough in the short-grass prairies, so Congress doubled it, then doubled it again to 640 acres for livestock. Today many ranchers feel they need to own thousands of acres and lease thousands more on nearby public land to make ends meet, and keeping the "home place" in the family can require King Lear–like decisions about succession planning. Ranches are big, or they're gone. In that context, land set aside for conservation is land unavailable for ranching families to expand. "It worries me more than water, wind, drought, prices," says rancher Craig French, whose family is involved with the anti-APR movement in Phillips County, across the Missouri River from LaTray.

1862年，国会通过了宅地法，给居民分配了160英亩联邦土地的所有权，前提是他们可以建起房子和种植作物来证明自己的财产。但是160英亩的浅草草场是不够的，于是国会把这个数字翻了倍，然后为了蓄养牲畜又把数字翻了一倍，变成640英亩。现在很多牧场主觉得他们应该有几千英亩的地，再在附近的公共用地上租几千英亩来满足需求，而要保留家庭用地可能就需要李尔王式的规划，比如同意牧场继承制。牧场一般要很大，否则就没了。在这种情况下，牧民家庭就不能占用留出来做保护区的用地。牧场主克雷格·弗伦奇说：“这一点比水、风、干旱和价格更让我担心。”他的家人都参与了菲利普斯县的反对美国草原保护区运动，菲利普斯县和拉特雷隔密苏里河相望。

French is standing in a corral on a cloudy morning in a pasture just north of APR, where his parents, Bill and Corky French, have convened four generations of family and neighbors to brand their calves. Their forebears settled nearby more than a century ago; the couple run more than a thousand head of cattle on 60,000 public and private acres.

一个多云的早晨，弗伦奇站在美国草原保护区北边一片牧场旁的畜栏边，他的父母比尔和可奇·弗伦奇召集了家里的四代人还有邻居，去给他们的小牛打上烙印。他们的祖先一百多年前就定居在附近，这对夫妻在60000英亩的公共和私人用地上蓄养着超过一千头牛。

Brandings here are chaotic, cooperative affairs, with families traveling from ranch to ranch to help each other out. Then they get to work: sorting, roping and dragging, wrestling and branding, vaccinating and castrating, calves squealing wild-eyed in rebuke ("Some are kind of theatrical," Craig French says). We associate this part of the world with rugged individualism, but brandings are remarkably communitarian rituals, willing exchanges of time and labor.

打烙印在这里是很混乱的，涉及到合作，一个个家庭从一个牧场跑到另一个牧场，互相帮助。然后他们就开始工作：分类、套绳、拖拽、扭打和烙印，注射疫苗和阉割，小牛犊怒瞪着眼睛鸣叫着。（“有一些是在演戏”，克雷格·弗伦奇说。） 我们把世界的这个部分跟粗犷的个人主义联系在一起，但打烙印是非常显著的共产主义的仪式，需要人们自愿交换时间和劳动力。

"We don't always agree with all our neighbors," says Craig's wife, Conni, "but we always help each other out."

克雷格的妻子康妮说：“我们并不是一直跟邻居的意见相同，但我们总是会互相帮忙。”