A STARTLING CALCULATION. 311 



turbed, wild sun-flowers spring suddenly into exist- 

 ence. The " grading camps " of the railroads were 

 followed by belts of these self-asserting annuals. 

 The first garden-patch cultivated at Fort Wallace 

 had weeds and insects similar to those that infest 

 gardens elsewhere. In some cases hundreds of miles 

 of barren plain intervened between the spots where 

 the seeds germinated, and the nearest points where 

 other plants of the same variety grew. Neither birds 

 or wind could have carried the seeds in such quanti- 

 ties. Is the theory true that germs fall down to us 

 from other planets? Or, do not the plains offer a 

 strong argument on behalf of spontaneous genera- 

 tion ? 



Another matter on which the plains appealed to us 

 strongly, pertained to the wanton destruction of its 

 wild cattle. During the year 1871, about fifty 

 thousand buffalo were killed on the plains of Kansas 

 and Colorado alone. Of this number, it will be cor- 

 rect to estimate that about one-third were shot for 

 their robes, as many more for meat, and sixteen 

 thousand or so for sport. Each buffalo could proba- 

 bly have furnished five hundred pounds of meat and 

 tallow, the quantity of the latter being small. When 

 killed for food, only the hind quarters and a small por- 

 tion of the loin are saved, in all perhaps two hundred 

 pounds. The hides of these are sacrificed, the skin 

 being cut with the quarters, and left on them for 

 their protection. The profits of this great slaughter 

 would, therefore, be about 16,500 robes and 3,300,000 

 pounds of meat ; the waste over 33,000 robes, and 

 probably not less than 20,000,000 pounds of meat. 



