490 BUFFALO LAND. 



half million dollars. This eight million acres of pasture 

 would at least feed eight million sheep, yielding twenty-four 

 million pounds of wool, and, at the same price as Ohio wool, 

 six million dollars. Now, this money, instead of going to 

 build up ranches, stock-farms, store-houses, woolen mills, and 

 all the components of a great and thrifty settlement, is sent by 

 our wool-growers and woollen manufacturers to Buenos Ayres, 

 to Africa, and Australia, to enrich other people and other lands, 

 while our wool-growing resources remain undeveloped. 



" As you follow the North Platte up through the Black Hill 

 Canyon, you come out upon the great Laramie plains, which lie 

 between the Black Hills on the east and the snowy range on 

 the west. These plains are ninety miles north and south, and 

 sixty miles east and west. They are watered by the Big and 

 Little Laramie Rivers, Deer Creek, Rock Creek, Medicine 

 Bow River, Cooper Creek, and other tributaries of the North 

 Platte. It is on the extreme northern portion of these plains, 

 in the valley of Deer Creek, that General Reynolds wintered 

 during the winter of 1860, and of which he remarks, on pages 

 seventy-four anc\ seventy-five of his f Explorations of the Yel- 

 lowstone," as follows : 



" ' Throughout the whole season's march the subsistence of 

 our animals had been obtained by grazing after we had reached 

 our camp in the afternoon, and for an hour or two between the 

 dawn of day and our time of starting. The consequence was 

 that, when we reached our winter quarters there were but few 

 animals in the train that were in a condition to have continued 

 the march without a generous grain diet. Poorer and more 

 broken-down creatures it would be difficult to find. In the 

 spring they were in as fine condition for commencing another 

 season's work as could be desired. A greater change in their 



