Lot 27

Start on the west side and walk it. That edge lies the most open, grass running out between scattered cedar, with red dirt two-tracks braiding off a ranch road and bending away to the northeast. Easy going underfoot. Anyone looking hard at 34.83 acres of ranch land for sale in Motley County wants to know how they'll get around once they own it, and this side of Tract 27 at Darden Canyon answers that question in the first few minutes, because the tracks worn in by years of cattle work are still there to drive, ride or walk without cutting a thing.

Swing north and the ground gets business-like. A bladed road runs in straight and red through the mesquite and cedar up there, wide enough for a stock trailer, and it gives you a working spine to hang everything else off of. Set a camp at the top and you'd never fight your way in and out. That north end also carries more mesquite than the west does, the kind that leafs out pale green in April and throws just enough shade to hold a cow through the middle of the day.

The southeast is the wild part. Cedar thickens up as you go that direction, mounded dark green and shoulder high in places, broken by little sandy paths where the game walks, and beyond the far boundary the country keeps rolling until it lays down flat and blue at the horizon where the breaks start to show. Deer country, plain and simple. It's slower walking and you'll want boots you don't mind scratching, but it's the acreage that gives this tract its cover, and cover is what holds animals on a place when the neighbors are pushing them.

Inside those sides the ground works for you. There's about 67 ft of rise across the tract, roughly 2,371 to 2,438 ft, enough that the high ground sits well drained and catches whatever wind is moving, which counts for a lot on an August evening out here. The soil shows red and gravelly with rounded caliche pebbles turned up in the bare spots, firm stuff that holds a track and doesn't turn to soup on you. Grass comes in between them in the spring. Cattle were grazing through here when we last covered it, which tells you what the country has been doing for a long while and what it can keep doing.

This is old Matador country. The Scottish syndicate out of Dundee bought the Matador in 1882 and built it into 861,000 acres below the Caprock, headquartered at Ballard Springs not far from where you'd be standing, and the outfit is still working cattle out here today. Hide dealers out of Dodge City put Tee Pee City in this same corner of the county in 1875, a trading post rough enough that the Matador told its own cowboys to stay clear of it. The breaks below the Caprock have carried a reputation for mule deer and aoudad ever since, with whitetail in the mix, and rough ground like this southeast cedar is exactly where that reputation gets earned.

On the practical side, the tract is surveyed before you buy, with deeded access and light restrictions that leave you room to build a camp, run a few head, or just leave it alone and hunt it. Owner financing is available with as little as 5% down, and our office handles the paperwork straight through without sending you off to find a lender who has never heard of Motley County. Anything you need confirmed about utilities, water or what you can put on the ground, ask us and we'll get you the answer in writing rather than guess at it.

Come see it in the spring if you can, when the mesquite is breaking green and the grass is up, or in November when the cedar is the only thing holding color. Wear boots with a stiff sole for the gravel. We'll take you in off the north road, run the west two-tracks, then walk you into the cedar on the southeast so you can see the whole 34.83 acres for what it is before you decide anything.