Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1900-05-31

The Goodnights are great friends of
Buffalo" Jones of Kansas, a famous
hunter who had a herd in the north
west which he took to Texas and went
into partnership in the Goodnight
ranch. Mr.. and Mrs. Goodnight are
growing old. They have never had
any children of their own, but they
have learned to love their buffaloes
almost as much as if the animals were
children, and they do not wish the
herd to become scattered and left to
die after they themselves are dead, so
they have asked the government to
give them a lease of a big tract of
wild land in New Mexico where buff
faloes can be raised and preserved,
they agreeing to supply animals for
national parks to pay some of the
profits to the Goodnight college, and
at the end of twenty years to give
their whole herd to the government
Buffalo Jones, their partner, is now
in Washington trying to get congress
10 accept the offer.
The government has 100000 900 acres
OF unoccupied land in New Mexico
and in the section around the Guade
loupe mountains nothing lives at the
present time. 1t is the best place in
the world for raising a herd of buff
taloes, for there is plenty of buffalo
grass, gramma grass and shade. Mr..
Jones wants the government to set
$500, 600 acres of this land for the use
of the buffalo, and he will himself
agree to utilize 100000 acres of it for
this purpose The committee on pub
lie lands in the lower house of con-
gress has agreed to recommend that
only 10000 acres be leased to Mr..
Jones, which is not enough for his
purpose, as the buffalo is a migratory
animal and likes to wander about
1t can live on less land, though, than
cattle for the reason that cattle in
grazing run all over the fields, crop
ping a mouthful of grass here and
there and destroying more than they
eat Besides which cattle only bite
off at first that part of the grass con-
tanning the seeds and afterwards come
back and eat it nearer me roots. The
bison when grazing Inc up like a
company of soldiers. about eight feet
apart, and eat the grass down to
the roots as they go forward. The
strip of grass left between each ami
NAL is about four feet wide and this
furnishes the seed the next year for
the land that has been eaten over, so
hof Nloiy ,aI, h,,A 01D
are each year covered with fresh
grass, while in the places where cattle
feed the grass is soon destroyed. Buff
faloes never have the diseases common
TO cattle because it is a cleaner ami
NAL. In drinking, for instance, the
ouffaloes come down to the water in
single file, like Indians CT soldiers;
they are usually led by an old cow
and each one treads in the tracks of
the one before it. This makes deep
paths in the prairie, called trails, and
when once these trails have been
made the buffaloes always use them
in going to and from their drinking
places, When they get to the water,
they go in, drink their fill and come
right out again. Cattle struggle down
without any system or order, wallow
in the watering place, often until it is
foul and the water unfit to drink, and
when they come out wander aimlessly
around, tramping down more grass
than they eat, while the buffaloes go
back to their feeding grounds in single
file by the same trail they come.
In the summer time when cattle be-
come thin and poor by reason of being
worried by flies and mosquitoes, the
buffalo wakes fat because his thick
underfur and the ''pantalets' on his
legs protect him from these pests. In
the winter time when the billiards
and other storms stampede herds of
cattle causing them to drift with the
storm until many of them are lost or
die from weakness, the buffalo faces
the storm and quietly eats on, his
thick winter robe of fur protecting
him against the fercest blizzard that
ever blew. In the spring when they
shed their thick fur coats they &c
where there is hard. dry clay and roll