Asheville daily citizen., 1894-11-27
A BUFFALO RANCH.
An Experiment in Bison Breeding
In the Texas Panhandle.
The Unique Enterprise Of an Old Plains
man Who Is Striving to Perpetuate
tho Valuable Qualities OF an
Almost Extinct Animal.

Goodnight, little station on the
Fort Worth and Denver City rail-
road, in Armstrong county, In the
Texas Panhandle, is the home Of
Charles Goodnight, who is quietly but
earnestly and persistently conducting
an experiment in the crossing of the
American buffalo with native cattle, so
far without completely successful re-
suits, but certainly with very inter
esting ones.
Mr.. Goodnight, says Forest and Stream,
has little home ranch of about seventy
thousand acres. This is his garden.
His real ranch, where he does business,
Is the Quitaque, some distance away,
where he has about four hundred thou
sand acres under fence. 1t is at his lit
tie garden, or truck patch, that he has
his buffalo experimental station.
Several years ago, when buffaloes
were more plentiful in Texas than
they are now, the cowboys working for
Mr.. Goodnight would often rope" a
buffalo calf and bring 1t home. These
We're turned into an inclosure, and,
though little attention was paid to
them, they formed the nucleus Of the
herd now on the ranch. AS the wild
buffalo began to disappear these be-
came Of greater interest, and six or
seven years ago Mr.. Goodnight began
in earnest the attempt to produce a
new and distinct breed by crossing
buffalo and neat cattle, and trying to
perpetuate this type of inbreeding.
There are now on his ranch about
twenty-five or thirty full-blood buffa-
loes and as many more half-brceds. Most
Of these full-bloods-probably all of
thcm-were calved on the ranch. In
deed, the herd are the product Of the
calves roped and brought in by the
cowboys In the late 'T0s, which grew
up and multiplied by the regular and
natural process They are fine-looking
animals. Old buffalo hunters say they
never saw tner-looking ones when these
animals covered the Texas prairies by
millions, which is conclusive evidence
that civilization is not fatal to the
propagation Of the buffalo He needs
only to be protected and given fair
show, and in time there is no reason
why there should not be as many
butfaloes on the prairies Of Texas as
there were twenty years ago.
The crosses are, however, Of the
greatest interest. 1t was Mr.. Good
nights desire to establish Il type OF
cattle with the valuable robe, the
thrifty rustling qualities, the weight
and general characteristics of tht
buffalo. lie has bred "black mulleys'
to the buffalo bulls-the cattle beins
chiefly polled Angus-and the result /.
an animal with the light hindquarter.
and heavy shoulders Of the buffalo, the
shaggy head and the long. woolly
hair so desirable in buffalo robes being
reproduced almost as perfectly as IL
the parent bull. The tail is long ant
Hat like mules tail. Horns ar,
absent when bred to mullcys. Ii
two or three cases, where the mother
were Texas cows, the horns We're lik,
buffalo horns, but some longer. On,
peculiar animal, which is out of plac,
outside of Il sidcshow, is the offspring
of n buffalo bull and Texas COW
which has black and white stripes run
ming around the body like n zcbra's
The half-breeds are heavier il
weight t,ian the average cattle, ar,
better rustlcrs, and keep fat through
cold weather and hard rustling tha
thin the others and often result II
heavy fatalities.
Mr.. Goodnight also has on his hom'
ranch about thirty or thirty-tive ell
that were brought from Colorado
which he has in pasture Of four o
five hundred acres, the fence aroun,
which is coyote-proof. These elk hav
not thriven well, and do not appear +
be ct home