teaching the way to God. And there is already a strong 
and world-wide reaction against the artificial life of 
the city, and toward the natural and fuller lite of the 
country. In the study and companionship of the life 
in the open field and on the mountain is to be found 
increasingly a necessary element in the future whole- 
some and higher development of man; man not as a 
master, but as a servant, companion and colaborer of 
all created things. 
When this Society was organized seven years ago 
it was frankly acknowledged among those who had 
watched the gradual disappearance of the buffaloes in 
the west that unless something heroic be done and done 
soon the buffalo would soon become an extinct animal. 
There were then known to exist in North America only 
1,100 pure blooded buffaloes, and the number was 
rapidly decreasing. The increase during the past seven 
years 1s more than 300 per cent. 
When last we met the total recorded number of 
pure-blooded buffaloes in North America was 2,907. 
During the year 1913 the census, kept with such great 
labor, care and accuracy by our Secretary, Mr. Whar- 
ton, shows an increase of 546, or 19 per cent, with a 
total number of 3,453. The number of calves born last 
season was 549. With the continued activity of this 
Society, and the increased interest among the people of 
the United States and Canada, the future of the buffalo 
is assured. 
The most important work of the past season has 
been connected with the establishment of the new Wind 
Cave National Game Preserve in the southern limits of 
the Black Hills of South Dakota. Through the co- 
operation of the National Government, the American 
Bison Society and the New York Zoological Society, 
acting under the law and with the appropriation made 
by Congress in 1912 on the recommendation of this So- 
ciety, the Department of Agriculture during the spring 
and summer of 1915 was engaged in aequiring lands 
containing permanent and abundant supplies of pure 
water adjacent to the old Wind Cave National Park in 
South Dakota; in creating out of the old Park lands 
10 
