text: Archive film: 3360, 1940, Sound, B/W, Farming + Rural Life
  Film: 3360
  Farming + Rural Life | 1940 | Sound | B/W
  The cowboy in American lifestyle of the 1940s.
  Boy on train in U.S.A reads Western comic books and magazines. He looks out the window and imagines the cowboy lifestyle. Cue an excellent montage of cowboys action from Westerns. Cowboys chase Indians on horseback, stagecoaches attacked by Indians, fights and shoot outs in Western saloons. The boy is interrupted and he picks up his comics and puts his cap. He is helped off the train at his stop where a man collects him in a Ford "woody" station wagon.
  The boy stays on a cattle ranch in the Western USA. He watches a workman fixing a car, driving a tractor and blacksmithing. Cattle grazing. Man on horseback rides past a windmill beside a drinking hole or dam.
  A cowhand rides into the yard where the boy is standing and dismounts while the horse is still moving. He wears chaps and a gun on his hip. The boy smiles and thinks he is a real cowboy. They ride off together on horses. The cowhand fixes fences.
  Cattle grazing. The cowhand hammers barbed wire to a fence post, before mounting his horse and riding off with the boy beside him. The cowhand checks on the pastures being grown for cattle feed. Machines harvest hay and straw. Bored boy sits on his horse. Cattle in the snow. Cowboys round up cattle and throw hay off a wagon for winter feed. Cows struggle in deep snow and cowboy carries a calf on his horse.
  Back to fixing fences, the bored boy almost walks into a rattle snake. The cowhand shoots the snake. Horses are rounded up and saddled. The cowhands along with the boy ride out to round up the cattle. Close ups of steers, bulls and calves.
  Cowboys out on the range. They prepare food in camp, there horses and chuck wagon in the background. They eat their food.
  Cattle are driven into the corral and separated. The young boy on his horse tries to round up a stray cow. The boy rides into a gully after the cow and the next you see is the cow and riderless horse running off. The boy gets up off the ground and rubs his backside. Another cowhand rides over to the boy.
  Calves are in a pen and are inoculated and branded by the hardy cowboys in traditional cowhand attire.
  A college in the USA, exterior of a large building. Inside a lecture hall a professor is explaining the anatomy of a cow, with the aid of a model skeleton on the stage. Outside the students get hands on practical experience with cattle. A student holds a short horn cow. Another holds a Aberdeen Angus. A Hereford breed and a Brahmin cow. A chemistry lab. Students studying.
  Cattle drive on horseback across the vast landscape of the Western USA. The cattle are driven into yards, but stampede as a steam train passes by. Stock are herded onto rail trucks and the train pulls away.
  World War Two American services montage of many clips, including soldiers marching, boots, pilot's helmets, insulin in boxes, first aid, army trucks on the move, torpedoes firing, big guns, mess hut, food being made for the masses, soldiers queuing for food and eating.