192 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 



The buffaloes, in common with deer and elks, have also often been invalu- 

 able to the pioneer settler, insuring him food during the first few years at 

 least of his frontier life. As already noticed. Boone and his party subsisted 

 almost wholly during their first winter in Kentucky on the flesh of this ani- 

 mal, and throughout the prairie portions of the country, from Illinois west- 

 ward to the Rocky Mountains, the buffalo has subserved a most important 

 purpose in the westward progress of civilization. The vast influx of settlers 

 that follows the opening of new railroads across the Plains, such as that 

 which still sets into the valley of the Arkansas along the line of the Atchi- 

 son, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, thus find a sure subsistence until they 

 can open up and improve their farms: and. as one writer has remarked, "by 

 the time the last buffalo has disappeared from Kansas, the frontier will be 

 subdued to civilization and he self-supporting." 



From lack of speedy and cheap means of transportation the consumption of 

 buffalo meat was, until recently, necessarily limited to the people living near 

 or within its actual range, and to parties traversing the country it inhabited. 

 Upon the opening of the Kansas railways, however, many car-loads, as 

 already shown by the above-given statistics, were shipped during winter to 

 the Eastern cities. While Chicago, St. Louis. Cincinnati, and the other 

 larger cities of the Mississippi Valley formed the principal markets for its 

 sale, it was also sent in large quantities to Boston, New York. Philadelphia. 

 Baltimore, and the other chief cities of the East.* When arriving in good 

 condition, as was usually the case, it rivals beef and venison in cheapness, if 

 not in quality, besides having the special feature of novelty. 



The meat of the buffalo is often spoken of as being dry and tough, and far 

 inferior in quality to beef. This is in a measure true, the flesh of middle* 

 aged and elderly hulls being of this character, that of old hulls being eaten 

 only when none other can lie obtained. The flesh of a young 1'at cow. or of 

 a yearling or two-year-old hull, however, i- Dot surpassed by the finest beef, 

 from which it cannot usually he distinguished. During some two months 



Bpenl on the Kansas plains in 1871-72, I ate il daily, and would never ask 



• It already noticed, upwaid of one million pounds ware shipped, as saddles, over the Kansas Pacific 

 Railway during tin- winter of i*;i 72, besides hundreds "i barreli of tongues and cured " hams" during 



period. Since thai ti the shipments otot il\i< road hare greatlj diminished, but thoreduc- 



lian balanced bj the additional shipments over thu Atchison, Topeka, 



and s. int. i IV road, which in 1873 were over one and a half million (1,617, > pounds. In 1874, how- 



erer, the shipment was less than half ilii- amount, there having been alroad} a marked decline in the 

 amount of buffalo |" - irted over ilii- road il-". 



