THE EXTERMINATION OF THE AMERICAN BISON. 457 



" (5) We want an animal that will fill the above bill, and make good 

 beef and plenty of it. 



"All the points above could easily be found in the buffalo, excepting 

 the fifth, and even that is more than filled as to the quality, but not in 

 quantity. Where is the 'old timer 7 who has not had a cut from the 

 hump or sirloin of a fat buffalo cow in the fall of the year, and where is 

 the one who will not make affidavit that it was the best meat he ever 

 ate ? Yes, the fat was very rich, equal to the marrow from the bone of 

 domestic cattle. * * * 



"The great question remained unsolved as to the quantity of meat 

 from the buffalo. I finally heard of a half-breed buffalo in Colorado, 

 and immediately set out to find it. I traveled at least 1,000 miles to 

 find it, and found a five-year-old half-breed cow that had been bred to 

 domestic bulls and had brought forth two calves — a yearling and a 

 sucking calf that gave promise of great results. 



" The cow had never been fed, but depended altogether on the range, 

 and when I saw her, in the fall of 1885, 1 estimated her weight at 1,800 

 pounds. She was a brindle, and had a handsome robe even in Septem- 

 ber -, she had as good hind quarters as ordinary cattle; her fore parts were 

 heavy and resembled the buffalo, yet not near so much of the hump. 

 The offspring showed but very little of the buffalo, yet they possessed a 

 woolly coat, which showed clearly that they were more than domestic 

 cattle. * # * 



"W T hat we can rely on by having one-fourth, one-half, and three- 

 fourths breeds might be analyzed as follows : 



" W 7 e can depend upon a race of cattle unequaled in the world for 

 hardiness and durability ; a good meat-bearing animal ; the best and 

 only fur-bearing animal of the bovine race ; the animal always found in 

 a storm where it is overtaken by it ; a race of cattle so clannish as never 

 to separate and go astray ; the animal that can always have free range, 

 as they exist where no other animal can live ; the animal that can water 

 every third day and keep fat, ranging from 20 to 30 miles from water; 

 in fact, they are the perfect animal for the plains of North America. 

 One-fourth breeds for Texas, one-half breeds for Colorado and Kansas, 

 and three-fourths breeds for more northern country, is what will soon 

 be sought after more than any living animal. Then we will never be 

 confronted with dead carcarsses from starvation, exhaustion, and lack of 

 nerve, as in years gone by." 



The bison as a beast of burden. — On account of the abundance of horses 

 for all purposes throughout the entire country, oxen are so seldem used 

 they almost constitute a curiosity. There never has existed a necessity 

 to break buffaloes to the yoke and work them like domestic oxen, and 

 so few experiments have been made in this direction that reliable data 

 on this subject is almost wholly wanting. While at Miles City, Mont., 

 I heard of a German "granger" who worked a small farm in the 

 Tongue Eiver Valley, and who once had a pair of cow buffaloes trained 



