158 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



in kind which are to be delivered to the Government each 

 year, for the use of the public parks. 



Owing to a misunderstanding of the boundaries the 

 original bill provided for an unnecessarily large area, 

 and the hostility of the sheep and cattle men was at once 

 aroused. The committee in reporting back this bill have 

 cut the amount down to such dimensions that we believe 

 the bill would meet the approval of even these interested 

 parties. The addition of this herd of buffalo, instead of 

 being an injury to New Mexico, will be of positive advan- 

 tage, because it adds an additional industry, or, rather, 

 restores one which has been destroyed. The lease is a 

 temporary one, and runs but for twenty years. If it is 

 found that the animals sufficiently increase under this 

 arrangement the lease could be renewed, otherwise there 

 would be no harm done in terminating it. 



George Bird Grinnell, in 1892, estimated the Yellow- 

 stone buffalo at 400, and reported that they were increas- 

 ing. The writer of this report visited the Yellowstone 

 last summer, and from the best information he could get 

 there were not to exceed twenty-three still alive. At $10 

 a head the 10,000,000 of these animals that existed only 

 a few years ago would be worth $100,000,000. 



In 1873 Congress passed a law to protect the buffalo, 

 but the President of the United States failed to sign it 

 and it did not become a law. The failure to sign this bill 

 might be called another "crime of '73." An action then 

 would have been in time. The failure to act now in this 

 matter will be fatal. We believe that the government 

 should make this experiment. It ought to be made, even 

 if it had to be made entirely at public expense, but under 

 the plan proposed by this bill the government will not 

 expend a single dollar. The land to be used for the pur- 

 pose is public land. It belongs to the people. The whole 

 people of the United States are concerned in saving our 



