It usually happens that chips are most-abundant in the sheltered creek-bottoms and near the water-holes, the very situations which travelers naturally select for their camps. In these spots the herds have gathered either for shelter in winter or for water in summer, and remained in a body for some hours. And now, when the cowboy on the round-up, the surveyor, or hunter, who must camp out, pitches his tent in the grassy coulée or narrow creek-bottom, his first care is to start out with his largest gunning bag to “rustle some buffalo chips” for a campfire. He, at least, when he returns well laden with the spoil of his humble chase, still has good reason to remember the departed herd with feelings of gratitude. Thus even the last remains of this most useful animal are utilized by man in providing for his own imperative wants.
IX. The Present Value of the Bison to Cattle-Growers.
The bison in captivity and domestication.—Almost from time immemorial it has been known that the American bison takes kindly to captivity, herds contentedly with domestic cattle, and crosses with them with the utmost readiness. It was formerly believed, and indeed the tradition prevails even now to quite an extent, that on account of the hump on the shoulders a domestic cow could not give birth to a half-breed calf. This belief is entirely without foundation, and is due to theories rather than facts.
Numerous experiments in buffalo breeding have been made, and the subject is far from being a new one. As early as 1701 the Huguenot settlers at Manikintown, on the James River, a few miles above Richmond, began to domesticate buffaloes. It is also a matter of historical record that in 1786, or thereabouts, buffaloes were domesticated and bred in captivity in Virginia, and Albert Gallatin states that in some of the northwestern counties the mixed breed was quite common. In 1815 a series of elaborate and valuable experiments in cross-breeding the buffalo and domestic cattle was begun by Mr. Robert Wickliffe, of Lexington, Ky., and continued by him for upwards of thirty years.[49]
Quite recently the buffalo-breeding operations of Mr. S. L. Bedson, of Stony Mountain, Manitoba, and Mr. C. J. Jones, of Garden City, Kans., have attracted much attention, particularly for the reason that the efforts of both these gentlemen have been directed toward the practical improvement of the present breeds of range cattle. For this reason the importance of the work in which they are engaged can hardly be overestimated, and the results already obtained by Mr. Bedson, whose experiments antedate those of Mr. Jones by several years, are of the greatest interest to western cattle-growers. Indeed, unless the stock of pure-blood buffaloes now remaining proves insufficient for the purpose, I fully believe that we will gradually see a great change wrought in the character of western cattle by the introduction of a strain of buffalo blood.
The experiments which have been made thus far prove conclusively that—
(1) The male bison crosses readily with the opposite sex of domestic cattle, but a buffalo cow has never been known to produce a half-breed calf.
(2) The domestic cow produces a half-breed calf successfully.