Tote guts to a bear: Never argue with skunk, mule, cook; Horse-high, bull-strong

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Any help on these three phrases?
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uts_to_a_bear/_ 
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“He ain’t fit to tote guts to a bear”
 
"He ain’t fit to tote guts to a bear” is a disparagement of a cowboy cook.  
The origin of the phrase is uncertain. 


3 October 1956, Burlington  (NC) Daily Times-News, pg. 7: 
One Florida soldier wrote: “Our  officers are not fit to tote guts to a bear.”
 

16 July 192, Valley  Morning Star (Harlingen, TX), pg. C6: 
Sunday breakfast prepared by the  survivors among the apprentices. It should 
be noted that those malcontents in  our chapter who have said that our caterer 
is not fit to tote guts to a bear are  unnecessarily unkind. 

30 September 1976, Chicago Tribune, “The  great chili debate” by Carol 
Rasmussen, pg. D1: 
As for the cook who makes  chili without beans, (H. Allen—ed.) Smith snorts 
that it reminds him of  an old Texas saying about any range cook whose grub was 
consistently  miserable—“He ain’t fit to tote guts to a bear.”  
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th_a_skunk_a_mule_or_a_cook/_ 
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“Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule, or a cook”
 
"Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule, or a cook” is a popular bit of  
cowboy wisdom. The origin of the phrase is unclear. 


_Harry Oliver’s Desert Rat Scrap  Book_ 
(http://www.klaxo.net/hofc/drsb/t054.htm)  
Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule, or a cook. 
(There is  no date for this edition of Harry Oliver’s Desert Rat Scrap Book, 
but it  might be 1949—ed.) 

_Google  Books_ 
(http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC02548442&id=YQJk3dF8JuIC&q="skunk,+a+mule"&dq="skunk,+a+mule"&ie=ISO-8859-1&pgis=1)  
American Cattle Trails 1540-1900 
by Garnet M. Brayer  and Herbert Oliver Brayer 
Bayside, NY: Western Range Cattle Industry Study,  in cooperation with the 
American Pioneer Trails Association 
1952 
Pg. ?:  
When not in his hearing other members of the crew frequently referred to him  
as the “old woman,” but all remembered the range maxim that “only a fool 
argues  with a skunk, a mule or a cook.” 

(JSTOR research database) 
Reviewed  Work(s): 
Come an’ Get It: The Story of the Old Cowboy Cook by Ramon  F. Adams, Nick 
Eggenhofer 
Review author[s]: J. Frank Dobie 
Western  Folklore, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Jan., 1953), pp. 67-68: 
“Only a fool argues  with a skunk, a mule, or a cook,” went a range saying. 
Mr. Adams treats of the  camp cook as belonging to the past. 

_Golden Valley County  (MT) History_ 
(http://www.co.golden-valley.mt.us/html/79ranch.html)  
Seventy-Nine Ranch* 
By Albie Gordon, 1971  
(...) 
Not all men on the Ranch did their work on horseback. Perhaps the  most 
important one was the cook and did his work on foot. Sometimes his patience  was 
worn pretty thin and as one cowhand expressed himself, “Only a fool argues  with 
a skunk, a mule, or a cook.” 
*This is an excerpt from the book “Dawn in  Golden Valley,” 1971, compiled 
by Albie Gordon, Margaret Lehfeldt, and Mary  Morsanny. 

3 January 1970, Florence (SC) Morning News, pg. 11:  
“Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule or a cook,” he once said.  
(Cowboy artist Charles Russell—ed.) 

16 August 1985, Chicago  Tribune, pg. D1: 
Only a fool argues with a skunk, a mule or the cook.  
-- Reader’s Digest.  
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g_and_pig_tight_qualities_of_a_texas_fence/_ 
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xas_fence/)  
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“Horse high, bull strong, and pig tight” (qualities of a Texas  fence)
 
A good fence should be “horse high, bull strong, and pig tight.” These  
qualities became associated with a Texas fence, but they applied to any fence.  
The phrase dates from the 19th century. 


19 October 1859, River Falls  (WI) Journal, pg. 1: 
“A Buncombe fence, Sir, is a fence that is bull  strong, horse high and pig 
tight.” 

1 December 1860, Ohio  Cultivator, pg. 360: 
...to fence stock out, fences must be horse  high, bull strong, and pig 
tight;... 

15 September 1866, Colman’s  Rural World, pg. 276: 
Last spring I procured a hook and an axe, and with  a hand to help me, laid 
about three quarters of a mile down, and now it looks  like a lawful fence, 
to-wit: “Pig-tight, bull-strong and horse high.” 

31  August 1867, Prairie Farmer, pg. 133: 
...and lines of beautiful  hedges a mile long are not hard to find that are “
horse high, pig tight and bull  strong.” 

21 January 1912, New York Times, pg. X4: 
A Texas  Court of Appeals has just rendered a decision defining what is a 
legal fence in  the Lone Star State. It is that a legal fence must be at least 
five feet high  and be of such construction that a hog may not go through it. 

The  requisites for a lawful and sufficient fence laid down by a Virginia 
Magistrate  many years ago seems to fill the bill better than the judgment of the 
Texas  court. Without specifying the material of which it was to be 
constructed, the  requirements were that it should be “horse-high, pig-tight and 
bull-strong.” Any  fence over which a horse could leap or a pig push through or a 
bull break down  was not a lawful fence, and the fact that it had been so 
surmounted, penetrated,  or broken down absolved the owner of the animals that has 
accomplished such  invasions from blame or liability for loss. 

11 June 1978. New York  Times, pg. E1: 
The house legislation was sponsored by Representative  William S. Moorehead, 
Democrat of Pennsylvania, who likened it to “a good Texas  fence—horse high, 
bull strong and pig tight.” 

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