52 
BUFFALO. 
information : “ as far,” he writes, “ as his limited knowledge of natural history 
and his attention to these animals will permit him to do.” He proceeds : 
“The herd of Buffalo I now possess have descended from one or two cows that 
I purchased from a man who brought them from the country called the Up- 
per Missouri ; 1 have had them for about thirty years, but from giving them 
away and the occasional killing of them by mischievous persons, as well 
as other causes, my whole stock at this time does not exceed ten or twelve. 
I have sometimes confined them in separate parks from other cattle, but 
generally they herd and feed with my stock of farm cattle. They graze 
in company with them as gently as the others. The Buffalo cows, I think, 
go with young about the same time the common cow does, and produce 
once a year ; none of mine have ever had more than one at a birth. The 
approach of the sexes is similar to that of the common bull and cow under 
similar circumstances at all times when the cow is in heat, a period 
whichseems, as with the common cow, confined neither to day, nor night, 
nor any particular season, and the cows bring forth their young of course at 
different times and seasons of the year, the same as our domesticated cattle. 
I do not find my Buffaloes more furious or wild than the common cattle 
of the same age that graze with them. 
“Although the Buffalo, like the domestic cow, brings forth its young at 
different seasons of the year, this I attribute to the effect of domestication, 
as it is different with all animals in a state of nature. I have al ways heard 
their time for calving in our latitude was from March until July, and it is 
very obviously the season which nature assigns for the increase of both 
races, as most of my calves were from the Buffaloes and common cows at 
this season. On getting possession of the tame Buffalo, I endeavoured to 
cross them as much as I could with, my common cows, to which experi- 
ment I found the tame or common bull unwilling to accede, and he was al- 
ways shy of a Buffalo cow, but the Buffalo bull was willing to breed with 
the common cow. 
“ From the domestic cow I have several half breeds, one of which was a 
heifer ; this I put with a domestic bull, and it produced ahull calf. This I 
castrated, and it made a very fine steer, and when killed produced very fine 
beef. I bred from the same heifer several calves, and then, that the experi- 
ment might be perfect, I put one of them to the Buffalo bull, and she 
brought me a bull calf Avhich I raised to be a very fine large animal, per- 
haps the only one to be met with in the world of his blood, viz., a three quar- 
ter, half quarter, and half quarter of the common blood. After making 
these experiments, I have left them to propagate their breed themselves, 
•so that I have only had a few half breeds, and they always prove the same, 
even by a Buffalo bull. The full blood is not as large as the improved 
