312 BUFFALO LAND. 



In this computation, the vast herds which range 



further north are not included. There, however, the 

 waste is comparatively Bmall, as the red man is in 

 the habit of saving the greater portion of the flesh 

 and robes. Of the above twenty million pounds of 

 meat left to rot in the sun, and taint the air of the 

 plains, the greater proportion would furnish sweeter 

 and more nourishing food to the poor classes of our 

 cities than the beef which they are able to obtain. 



Let this slaughter continue for ten years, and the 

 bison of the American continent will become extinct. 

 The number of valuable robes and pounds of meat 

 which would thus be lost to us and posterity, will run 

 too far into the millions to be easily calculated. All 

 •over the plains, lying in disgusting masses of putre- 

 faction along valley and hill, are strewn immense 

 carcasses of wantonly slain buffalo. They line the 

 Kansas Pacific Railroad for two hundred miles. 



Following ordinary sporting parties for an hour 

 after they have commenced smiting the borders of 

 a herd, stop by a few of the monsters that they 

 leave behind, in pools of blood, upon the grass ; 

 draw your hunting-knife across the fat hind-quar- 

 ters, and see how the cuts reveal depths of sweet, 

 nourishing meat, sufficient to supply two hundred 

 starving wretches with an abundant dinner; then 

 if your humanity does not tempt to a shot at the 

 worse than pot-hunters in front, God's bounties have 

 indeed been thrown away upon you. 



By law, as stringent in its provisions as possible, 

 no man should be suffered to pull trigger on a buf- 

 falo, unless he will make practical use of the robe 



