Bovd: Crossing I^ison and Cattle 



193 



HEIFER WITH HALF BUFFALO BLOOD. 



The hybrids average rather larger in size than either parents (buffalo cows weighing only 1,000 

 to 1,200 lbs., while the buffalo bulls weigh from 1,803 to 2,000). Their meat is said to be 

 indistinguishable from beef of the same age and quality, but they produce more of it, and 

 the cuts are considered choicer. The first hybrids of this sort were produced as far back 

 as the revolutionary period; in 1908 W. T. Hornaday estimated that there were 260 of them 

 in the United States, 57 in Canada and 28 in Europe, a total of 345, while the number of 

 pure bison in the world at that time barely exceeded 2,000 (Figure 4.) 



bison characteristics. The onc-quarter- 

 cattalo has, we think, somewhat the 

 best coat of the three. 



HOPE FOR THE FUTURE. 



This is encouraging, especially in 

 these early matings, and seems to war- 

 rant the expectation that in later genera- 

 tions, after there has been time for 

 selection, there may be seen on cattaloes, 

 having say 10% or less of bison blood, as 

 good fur as is now seen on the one-half 

 and three-quarter-buffaloes. 



Moreover, there is a promising pros- 

 pect of greatly improving the beef 

 carcass also, for the bison carries an 

 exceedingly high percentage of beef on 

 his back, which is the most valuable 

 part of. a beef carcass; and the inheri- 



tance of this quality may well be 

 encouraged by selection. The hump of 

 the buffalo is not a mass of fat as some 

 people suppose, but is formed by neural 

 spines in length fully double those of 

 domestic cattle, and by the huge mus- 

 cles which lie alongside and fill up the 

 angle between these neural spines and 

 the ribs. In a rib roast of beef, these 

 muscles constitute the upper cut, and I 

 have had on my table a hybrid roast 

 with an upper cut nine inches deep. 

 I give the measurements of the 

 length (measured from the centre of the 

 spinal cord) of the neural spines of the 

 smallest of our three bison bulls. They 

 are in inches respectively: 11, 163^, 

 161^, 16, 153^, 1414, 13, — , lOH, 

 93^, 8, — , 6^, — , 4%, — . 



