458 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
[December, 
The End of the Buffalo. 
The final extinction of the buffalo is only a 
question of time. The period when this noblest 
which no herbage grows mark other places 
upon which a carcass has decayed and killed 
the vegetation, and from which the bones have 
been gathered for shipment to St. Louis. The 
Fig. 2. —LONE TREE PRAIRIE. 
of our wild animals will live only in history is 
rapidly approaching and will soon be unless 
some effort is made to stop the present indis¬ 
criminate wasteful slaughter. That the meth¬ 
ods by which this impending fate is wrought 
may be better understood, we present some 
sketches made in a recent visit to the plains in 
Western Kansas. The buffalo region is now 
remote from all actual settlement or possibility 
of settlement at any early date. The profitable 
occupation of those vast plains by farmers is a 
remote contingency. For many years to come 
there is scope and verge enough eastward of 
this arid district in which either abundant irri¬ 
gation or a change of climate is needed to make 
it habitable for the agriculturist. The buffalo 
and the antelope have here had their home from 
time immemorial, and here they might be per¬ 
mitted to exist with profit. But the greed of a 
class of men, many of whom are desperadoes 
who carry their lives in their hands and hold 
those of others as cheaply, who style them¬ 
selves hunters, is fast exterminating these crea¬ 
tures. Westward from Fort Dodge and a line 
running northerly from it the ground is occu¬ 
pied with bones of the buffalo. Here and there 
may be seen the ‘‘’dug outs” of the hunters 
(fig. 1) surrounded by drying skins at all 
periods of the year, irrespective of the season or 
condition of the buffalo; and heaps of hides 
are piled in the rear of them. The prairie, a 
vast expanse of level green upon which one 
lonely tree (fig. 2) perhaps breaks the monotony, 
prairie wolves (fig. 3) may occasionally be seen 
vainly searching amongst these dry wrecks for 
a meal, and heard howling as if in dismay at 
the melancholy prospect. The bones in places 
bare spot remains .uncovered with grass, a last¬ 
ing memento mori. The money gained by this 
slaughter only curses those who earn the mis¬ 
erable pittance thus procured. One dollar per 
skin and one dollar per ton of bones is the 
price paid for the labor, exposure, and wretched 
life of these men. And this miserable sum is 
yet more miserably expended. Forty-rod 
whiskey seems to be the chief article of traffic, 
and the frontier town of Sargent (fig. 4) where 
some of these men gather to trade their hides 
or gamble away the proceeds, consists of a sin¬ 
gle row of saloons of a wretched character, one 
of which calls itself a billiard saloon, and an¬ 
other is a dance house occupied by a few de¬ 
graded women. In these places the enterpris¬ 
ing visitor bent upon acquiring information 
will probably have for his fellow lodger at 
night an unkempt individual who retires to rest 
with his head upon a pair of revolvers and half 
a peck of cartridges. It is to support such a 
horde of men, who prey not only upon the in¬ 
offensive buffalo but upon each other and the 
ill-used Indian and with whom the life of a 
man is of no more account than that of the 
buffalo, that these animals are sacrificed and 
these plains rendered tenantless. The repulsive 
Fig. 1.— SYRACUSE COLONY—DRYING HIDES. 
near to the railroad stations have been carefully | conclusion of this matter only adds to the 
picked up, and occasionally one meets with vast 
quantities awaiting shipment, as shown in fig¬ 
ure 4. Whole trains of cars filled with them 
regret with which we view the whole business; 
and our earnest hope is that the useless and 
murderous destruction may be swiftly put an 
Fig. 3. —COYOTES AND DEAD BUFFALO. 
Fig. 4.—BUFFALO BONES AT SARGENT STATION. 
is dotted closely with skeletons, many of which 
are still held together by the dried flesh, 
shrunken like a coating of semi-transparent 
skin, upon them. Bare spots of ground upon 
have been forwarded eastward for use in bone- 
black manufactories. But although the bones 
have been removed the prairie still' exhibits a 
scar where every buffalo has fallen, and the 
end to by adequate legislation. Congress meets 
this month, and we hope that efforts will be 
made for a national game law which will 
prevent the wanton destruction of buffaloes. 
