LAND FOR WILD LIFE AND RECREATION 207 



one time could be found in nearly every eastern middle'class 

 house. At about the time Catlin wrote, the American Fur 

 Company was shipping 70,000 of these robes east every year. 5 



There was another reason that made the rapid decline of the 

 buffalo inevitable. As the cattle ranchers, and, later, the farmers 

 advanced across the plains, they took up the buffalo's range land 

 for their cattle and farms. Even if the hunter and fur trader 

 had not previously killed off the buffalo, the rancher and 

 farmer would have destroyed their range and thus paved the 

 way for mass starvation. 



The importance of this account of the buffalo is that it is 

 typical of the fate of a great deal of American wild life. Orig' 

 inally the trout and beaver and wild turkeys and all the 

 other native kinds of wild life were restricted only by their 

 natural enemies, the food supply, and the occasional hunting of 

 the Indians, who ate them or used their pelts for clothing. The 

 first white men who came to this country used the wild life in 

 much the same way. But there was one important difference. 

 In addition to supplying food and clothing, the white man 

 looked on wild life as a source of income. The Pilgrims said 

 they "hoped to pay the way of the Lord in fish." 6 By 1731 the 

 manufacturing of beaver hats was a flourishing industry in 

 New England and New York. 7 The annual value of furs 

 shipped from the British colonies in America to England was 

 well over 200,000 . 8 One of the most thorny points to settle 

 after the Revolution was the turning over of the fur trading 

 posts in the Northwest to Americans. In many cities great 

 fortunes, such as that of the Astor family, were built on the 

 fur trade. Today the annual value of fur taken from wild 



5 Prairie and Roc^y Mountain Adventures, by John C. Van Tramp H. Miller, 

 Columbus, Ohio, 1860, p. 411. 



6 Andrews, op. ctt. 



7 Faulkner, op. cit., p. 149. 



8 Ibid., p. 88. 



