The Extermination of the American BisonHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
History
The Extermination of the American Bison
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
American bison; Wildlife conservation -- United States -- Sources
As already intimated, the price paid on the range for ordinary buffalo
skins varied according to circumstances, and at different periods, and
in different localities, ranged all the way from 65 cents to $10. The
latter figure was paid in Texas in 1887 for the last lot of "robes" ever
taken. The lowest prices ever paid were during the tremendous slaughter
which annihilated the southern herd. Even as late as 1876, in the
southern country, cow robes brought on the range only from 65 to 90
cents, and bull robes $1.15. On the northern range, from 1881 to 1883,
the prices paid were much higher, ranging from $2.50 to $4.
[Illustration: FIG. 1. FIVE MINUTES' WORK. Photographed by L. A. Huffman.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2. SCENE ON THE NORTHERN BUFFALO RANGE. Photographed
by L. A. Huffman.]
A few hundred dressed robes still remain in the hands of some of the
largest fur dealers in New York, Chicago, and Montreal, which can be
purchased at prices much lower than one would expect, considering the
circumstances. In 1888, good robes, Indian tanned, were offered in New
York at prices ranging from $15 to $30, according to size and quality,
but in Montreal no first-class robes were obtainable at less than $40.
_Hides._--Next in importance to robes was the class of skins known
commercially as hides. Under this head were classed all skins which for
any reason did not possess the pelage necessary to a robe, and were
therefore fit only for conversion into leather. Of these, the greater
portion consisted of the skins of old bulls on which the hair was of
poor quality and the skin itself too thick and heavy to ever allow of
its being made into a soft, pliable, and light-weight robe. The
remaining portion of the hides marketed were from buffaloes killed in
spring and summer, when the body and hindquarters ware almost naked.
Apparently the quantity of summer-killed hides marketed was not very
great, for it was only the meanest and most unprincipled ones of the
grand army of buffalo-killers who were mean enough to kill buffaloes in
summer simply for their hides. It is said that at one time
summer-killing was practiced on the southern range to an extent that
became a cause for alarm to the great body of more respectable hunters,
and the practice was frowned upon so severely that the wretches who
engaged in it found it wise to abandon it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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