Ben K. Green (1912–1974) was an author who wrote about horses and the post-World War I

American West The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is census regions United States Census Bureau As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the mea ...

. His books consist of

anecdote An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Anecdotes may be real ...

s drawn from his own experiences in the Southwestern United States. He was born in

Cumby, Texas Cumby is a city in Hopkins County, Texas, United States. The population was 777 at the 2010 census, up from 616 at the 2000 census. In 2020, its population was 679. History Originally known as Black Jack Grove as early as 1848, from 1857 to ...

and raised in

Weatherford, Texas Weatherford () is a city in and the county seat of Parker County, Texas, United States. In 2020, its population was 30,854. Weatherford is named after Thomas J. Weatherford, a State senator and advocate for Texas's secession to the Confederate ...

. Before he was twenty years old he had successfully earned a living trading horses and mules and raising cattle and sheep. The common trading practice"cheat or be cheated"is reflected in his stories, told using the language and humor of the area and not excluding himself from either outcome. He was persuaded to settle in

Fort Stockton, Texas Fort Stockton is a city in and the county seat of Pecos County, Texas, United States. It is located on Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, future Interstate 14, U.S. Highways U.S. Route 67 in Texas, 67, U.S. Route 285 in Texas, 285, and U.S. ...

and practiced in the entire

Trans-Pecos The Trans-Pecos, as originally defined in 1887 by the Texas geologist Robert T. Hill, is the distinct portion of Texas that lies west of the Pecos River. The term is considered synonymous with Far West Texas, a subdivision of West Texas. The Tran ...

Region. A large part of his work involved identifying plants which grew in that

alkali In chemistry, an alkali (; from the Arabic word , ) is a basic salt of an alkali metal or an alkaline earth metal. An alkali can also be defined as a base that dissolves in water. A solution of a soluble base has a pH greater than 7.0. The a ...

soil and contained substances poisonous to horses, cattle, sheep, and hogs (

lechuguilla ''Agave lechuguilla'' (common name in Chihuahua: ''lechuguilla'', meaning "small lettuce") is an ''Agave'' species found only in the Chihuahuan Desert. The plant flowers once in its life and then dies. Description The plant reproduces most ...

, yellow-weed, pinguey,

locoweed Locoweed (also crazyweed and loco) is a common name in North America for any plant that produces swainsonine, an alkaloid harmful to livestock. Worldwide, swainsonine is produced by a small number of species, most of them in three genera of the ...

).Green, ''The Village Horse Doctor'', Knopf, 1971.

List of books

* ''Horse Tradin'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967 * ''Some More Horse Tradin'', Amazon, 2000 * ''The Village Horse Doctor West of the Pecos'', New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971 * ''Wild Cow Tales'' * ''A Thousand Miles of Mustangin'', Northland Press * ''Horse Tales'' * ''The Color of Horses: A Scientific and Authoritative Identification of the Color of the Horse'', Northland Press, 1974 * ''The Shield Mares'', Encino Press, 1967 * " Horse Conformation as to soundness and performance ", Northland Press, 1969, revised 1988, ISBN 0-87358--135-0

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Green, Ben K. 1912 births 1974 deaths Writers from Texas American veterinarians 20th-century American non-fiction writers People from Hopkins County, Texas People from Weatherford, Texas People from Fort Stockton, Texas