The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-11-21
SA 'INu TIL nACE
An Experiment In Bison Breeding
In the Texas Panhandle.
The Unique Enterprise OF An Old Fiafns-
nan Who Is Striving to PerPetuate
the Valuable Qualities of An
Almost Extinct Animal

Goodnight, a little station on the
Fort Worth and Denver City rail-
road, in Armstrong county, IN the
/ Texas Panhandle, ia the home OF
Charles Goodnight. vino is quietly but
earnestly and pcrsistently 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 butfaloes
were more plentiful in Texas than
they are now. the cowboys working for
Mr.. Goodnight would often rope"
buffalo calf and bring it home. These
were turned into an Enclosure, and.
though little attention was paid 10
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 70 produce q
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-
iloes and as many more half-breeds. Most
of these ull-bloods-prooobly all Of
them-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 '7Os, which grew
up and multiplied by the regular and
natural process. They are fine-looking
animals. Old buffalo hunters say they
never saw tiner-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
oaly to be protected and given a fair
show, and in time there is no reason
why there should not be rs many
'buffaloes 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 type of
cattle with the valuable robe, the
thrifty rustling qualities, the weight
and general characteristics of the
buffalo. He has bred black mulleys''
90 he h,,4r oln hui b.
chiefly polled Angus-and the result is
an animal with the light headquarters
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 in
the parent bull. The tail is long and
fat like a mules tail. Horns are
absent when bred % mulleys. In
two or three cases, where the mothers
We're TexaA cows, the horns were like
buffalo hoI. but some longer. One
peculiar aos nal, which is out of place
outside of :. sideshow, is the offspring
of buffai bull and a Texas cow,
which has slack and white stripes run
ming around the body like a zebra's.
The half-breeds are heavier In
weight tam the average cattle, are
better rustlers, and keep fat through
cold weather and hard rustling that
thin the others and often result in
heavy fatalities.
Mr.. Goodnight also has on his home
ranch about thirty or thirty-dve elk
that were brought from Colorado,
which he has in a pasture of four or
FIVE hundred acres. the fence around
which is coyote-proof. These elk have
not thriven we'll and do not appear to
be at home