Prior to the invention of barbed wire in the mid 1870s, the only options to enclose pastures was the construction of all wood fences or by the planting of hedgerows, both methods unsuitable to the treeless and dry western prairie. Instead, thousands of heads of cattle were run on communal pasture, with cowboys rounding up and driving cattle across vast expanses throughout the year.
This way of life changed with the arrival of barbed wire - an effective way to prevent cattle from wandering. Communal pastures could now be meaningfully divided up into lots, a process facilitated by the government surveys in the region in 1881. Increasing settlement also converted grazing lands to tilled cereal crops, further breaking up ranching grounds. The days of the great cattle drives were over, less than 30 years after ranching first came to the Canadian West.
