Evening star., 1905-11-07
BUFFALO JONES HERE
BREEDER OF THE CATALoE VISITS
PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT.

| Buffalo Jones of "cataloe" fame has
| at last gotten his scheme for the preser-
/ alton of the bison and the production OF
| a new fur-bearing animal on business
| ha sis, and in the course of short while
| perhaps few months, possibly a year or
two the "cataloe robe Will commence to
! be regularly quoted on the market. Mr.
| Jones passed through Washington TINS
week and had talk with President Roose-
| welt, who is much interested in everything
relating to big game life in the west.
Mr. Jones has already started a ranca
down on the western edge of the Grand
Canon where they are rearing buffalo and
cstaloe and carrying experiments Wath
Persian sheep. Possibly through the inter-
vcntion of the President, Mr.. Jones ma!
get the loan of some of the buffaio DullS
that will soon have to be thinned out OF the
Yellowstone Park herd, and this Will mean
substantial addition to the breeding
stock on the forest reserve grazing land.
A Cataloe Robe.
The pride of Jones life just now is a
cataloe robe that he is carrying on 10
New York to show some friends there, and
which he will afterward take back west
with him. Cut square the skin is about
eight feet each way, of glossy piacklsh-
brown, very soft and with hair not quite
SO long as a bears.
II have a standing offer of S1,2D for that
robe when | want to sell it, said its owner
TO a Star reporter. But it is not for sale
lust now. It's worth more to me than II
is 10 any one else, and if it had not been for
that skin, which shows what we can 10, l
would not have been able to get the as
sstance l needed to put this work on
paying basis That skin is from three
year old. My partner cut it Off too far
but l,a fur ia
and shows for itself. The five-year-olds
are bigger by half, of course We VII
have to start some of the killing rlght
away, and then you will see some furs.
Breeding the New Types.
The cataloe range in the forest reserve
is a big piece of country, but the buffalo
are kept on favored land, while the Gallo
way COWS with which they are crossed are
allowed to run wilder.
The mountain ranges OF the reserve fur
nish cold winter weather which is pro-
ductive of the best grades of fur, though the
robe which Mr. Jones has with him was
raised in Texas, where the weather Is much
less favorable. Mr.. Jones was asked
whether the experiments with the cataloe
had reached a point where there was
fixed type that reproduced it's character
istics. He replied: THAT is one OF the
points we are trying to establish now The
bulls of the alf-bloodS, like mules and
good many other hybrds, are sterile. SO
ere the quarter -bloods But when you get
down to the eighths they are fertile again,
and that is one of the things We are get
ting at now-to fix the proportion OF buffalo
and Galloway blood that IS necessary to
establish a fixed type.
There are about thirty of the Galloway
cows on our range now and half dozen
buffalo bulls. / am going to send down
some more from Montana. and when | go
back I expect to have a whole trainoad of
live stock to take along. There are some
of the bulls in the Yellowstone herd that
ought to be weeded out. and will proba
bly, get the loan of those. 1t all costs
money, but / am very Well satisfied with the
way things are going.
Public Interested in Buffalo
''It does take long time TO drive an idea
i3to peoples heads. Here l have been
working over the preservation of the buff
falo for twenty years, and | am just get
ting it so that the public is taking an inter-
est in II. In 1889 there was herd of 60
down in the No Mans land strip, south of
Kansas / went to ingalls,, who was in
Congress then, and begged him to get a law
through that would prohibit the ling OF
any of them. 1t would have been a COM
paratively easy matter then to have built
up a big herd from that basis, and 1t would
have cost very little 10 put a small guard
of old and retired soldiers around the strip
for the protection of the herd But no. 1t
was admitted in Congress that the idea was
pra cticabIe, but they would not do any
thing with it, and the whole of that herd
killed out.
Now skins of all sorts are getting scarcer
and dearer The improvement in guns and
traps is wiping out the fur-bearing animals.
But people will have furs. and the only
thing to do is to breed animals that Will
raise them. There are now about 1000 buf-
falo left alive about 400 up in Montana
with the Corbin herd up in New Hamp-
shire next. There are about forty in the
Yellowstone Park herd. The trouble with
the park animals. like all animals in
small bunch. is that they fnterbreed too
closely and lose sze and development"
Pictures of Yellowstone Herds.
Mr. Jones has with him lot of moving
picture films that he showed the President
and that he intends 10 have exhibited in
the east as soon as he gets time. But the
time for them is not yet ripe. They are
all wild animal pictures taken in the yell
lowstone Park of which he Is now game
warden. One of the most interesting is a
fight to a finish between two of the park
buffalo bulls. Then there are moving bands
of elk in the deep snow. thousand of them
in single band: mountain sheep, wildcats
and bears. all OF them caught Just as the
animals. the game warden and the moving
picture machine happened to get into con-
junction. There a few spaces in the
picture film of The bull fight where the anil
mails butted each other clear out of camera
range. Taat is a sore point with the old
game warden.
Il was showing these pictures to man
over in New Yor,. some time ago, said he,
''one of the officers of the company that
knows all about cameras and mighty little
about wild animals. He said TO me: It's
great pity, Mr.. jones. that you did not
have one of experts to take that pic
ture and have il done right Jehosephat.
Hire man to wait till a fight of that sort
was coming off, Do you know / waited
three years for that fight and If those bulls
hadn't been so busy with each other they'd
have killed me fer taking 1t then Hire
an expert!' and Mr.. Jones grunted scorn-
fully. Guess wild animals don't perform
to order while expert Is waiting around
to take them. / think did pretty wei for
an amateur. and ! think more of that coll
lection OF pictures than of almost anything