Buffalo grass

“ As I penetrate the Laramie Plains the persistent sage-brush, that has constantly hovered around my path for the last thousand miles, grows beautifully less, and the short, nutritious buffalo-grass is creeping everywhere. ”

“ The buffalo grass, having a short, rounded blade resembling the needles of a pine tree, and which cured like hay in the dry air, was very nutritious for the stock, but even where it grew, its small brown bunches covered but little of the soil. I have observed, and it is generally conceded, that the eastern prairie grass has of late each year spread westward, because "rain follows the plow." ”

“ The whole surface is destitute of bush or tree, but the thick little bunches of gray-green grass that cover it everywhere are rich with juice and nutriment. This is the buffalo grass of the Western prairies, and the moment the horses' heads are released down go their nozzles, and they are cropping eagerly and gratefully. ”

“ Tall grass grew along its edge. Putting it aside with his hand, and cautiously looking through it, the hunter can discern the huge shaggy back of the buffalo slowly swaying to and fro, as with his clumsy swinging gait he advances toward the water. ”

“ Brackish water was found at intervals, and white saline crystallizations were seen along some of the streams. Although the soil was more sandy than further east, the buffalo grass was abundant and nutritious, so [331] that at no time had we any difficulty in finding grazing for our cattle, and the antelope that we killed were invariably in good condition. ”

“ The rich buffalo or grama grass was exchanged for a coarser species, on which the hard-worked animals soon grew poor and weak. The thickets of plum and cherry, of boxalder and quaking ash, which had hitherto fringed the creeks, and where the deer and bear loved to resort—the former to browse on the leaves and tender shoots, the latter to devour the fruit—now entirely disappeared, and the only shrub seen was the eternal sage-bush, which flourishes every where in the western regions in uncongenial soils where other vegetation refuses to grow. ”

“ The fact is also noted that even where the prairie soil is not disturbed, the short buffalo grass disappears [483] as the 'frontier' extends westward, and its place is taken by grasses and other herbage of taller growth. That this change of the clothing of the plains, if sufficiently extensive, might have a modifying influence on the climate, I do not doubt; but whether the change has been already spread over a large enough area, and whether our apparently or really wetter seasons may not be part of a cycle, are unsettled questions. ”

“ In the spring the plains are fresh and green, but the grass cures rapidly on the stalk, and before the end of July is brown and ripe. It will then burn readily, but the fire is like that eating along a carpet, and by no means terrifying to either man or brute. The only occasion when it could possibly prove dangerous is when it reaches, as it sometimes does, some of the narrow valleys where the tall grass of the bottom grows; but even then, a run of a hundred yards will take one to buffalo grass and safety. This latter fact we learned from actual experience, later on our trip. ”

“ Even the hardy buffalo-grass becomes brown and tinder-like, and the only grazing there is in the cañons and valleys. Nevertheless our Plains have hitherto sustained buffalo by the million, and do it still, although these shaggy monsters have of late mostly disappeared from the Platte region. We did not see one in our entire trip to Denver; but a friend, who came through a month or so later, over the Smoky Hill route, where there was less travel, reported buffalo there yet by [Pg 51] the horizon full—the whole country being substantially black with them. ”

“ The grass with which they are mostly clothed, is of a superior quality. The celebrated 'buffalo grass' is of two kinds, both of which are species of the grama of New Mexico, and equally nutritious at all seasons. It is the same, I believe, that is called 'mezquite grass' in Texas, from the mezquite tree which grows there in the same dry regions with it. Of this unequalled pasturage the great western prairies afford a sufficiency to graze cattle for the supply of all the United States. ”

“ So, laying my Sharp's 44 on the short buffalo-grass and taking my butcher-knife from the scabbard on the cartridge-belt, I cut out the hump that lay upper-most, and started for the creek. After coming to the stream proper, which stood in shallow pools, I followed down some distance and came to some stunted cottonwoods and hackberry. Here, too, was a wild-turkey roost. I stalked boldly along and came to a fallen dead cottonwood, laid the buffalo hump on the small log, and proceeded to build a fire. All the matches I left camp with were in a match-box in my inside coat pocket with the oxen. ”

“ For four days we continued our westward journey, the soft grass carpet beneath us ever stretching away to the horizon in its tiresome sameness, its figures of buffalo and antelope, big antlered elk and skulking wolves woven more beautifully upon its brown ground than in the rug-work of the looms. ”

“ Bessey, at the agricultural meeting of the American Association, mentioned places where buffalo grass is plentiful, and others where the soil is a moving sand, that gradually becomes covered with native American grasses. ”

“ The young are apt to leave the nest if discovered when unable to fly, and follow their parents through the grass to be fed.
The plant on which a pair of Prairie Warblers are represented, is commonly called Buffalo Grass, and is found all along the edges of our extensive prairies, in the barrens of Kentucky, and in Louisiana, excepting in the swamps, it being more inclined to grow in dry soil and stiff grounds. ”

“ Great herds of buffalo fed on the high, dry, grassy plains. There were no trees at all except along the few wide rivers. But, oh, the flowers! Millions of them, red and blue and yellow and white, starred the green or brown grass. ”

“ Though in many parts arid and sterile, dreary and desolate, the long bunch grass (Festuca) , the short curly buffalo grass (Sisleria dactyloides) , the mesquit grass (Stipa spata) , and the Gramma, or rather, as it should be called, “Gamma” grass (Chondrosium fœnum) , [11] which clothe the slopes west of Fort Laramie, will enable it to rear an abundance of stock. The fertile valleys, according to Lieutenant Warren, “furnish the means of raising sufficient quantities of grain and vegetables for the use of the inhabitants, and beautiful healthy and desirable locations for their homes. ”

“ I have seen herds of buffalo, hundreds of thousands in number, living off bunch-grass that they obtained by pawing through two feet of snow, on the level. It was this feature that induced the stocking of immense ranches with cattle. Buffalo never changed the character of the grass, but herds of cattle did, so that now, on the ranges, very little of the bunch or buffalo grass remains. ”

“ The country from Fort Carney for four hundred miles up the Platte river valley and back from the high bluffs, that skirted the river on either side, was one vast rolling plain with no vegetation except a coarse luxuriant growth of grass in the valley near the river and beyond the bluffs; in spots that were not bare grew the prickly pear, and a short crisp grass of lightish color and of two varieties—the bunch and buffalo grasses—which were very nutritious, as the cattle thrived and grew fat on them. ”

“ But the buffalo, like the wild horse and half-wild range cattle, evidently escaped this annoyance. This grass is one of the common species over a wide area of the northern plains, and is always found on soil which is comparatively dry. In Dakota, Minnesota, and northwest Iowa it forms a considerable portion of the upland prairie hay. ”

“ In fact, the valuable grasses begin within one hundred and fifty miles of the Missouri frontier, and extend to the Pacific ocean. East of the Rocky mountains, it is the short curly grass, on which the buffalo delights to feed, (whence its name of buffalo,) and which is still good when dry and apparently dead. West of those mountains it is a larger growth, in clusters, and hence called bunch-grass, and which has a second or fall growth. Plains and mountains both exhibit them; and I have seen good pasturage at an elevation of ten thousand feet. ”

“ When its surface shall have been broken by the plow, and the water-fall absorbed instead of shed off, the plains will resemble, in appearance and products, any other prairie country. The amount of moisture annually passing over them, in storm-clouds that burst further east, is abundantly sufficient to make the tract very fertile. It is a well established fact in relation to climatic influences, that moisture attracts moisture; and in this region the dry ground, with its few shallow streams, has now no claim upon the summer clouds. The tough buffalo grass has put a lock-jaw on the plain. ”

“ They can become inhabited only by cultivating timber; but the rich growth of buffalo grass upon them will ever furnish an inexhaustible supply for innumerable herds of cattle and sheep. I know of no country in the world so well adapted to the herding system. ”

“ The buffalo, on the other hand, always remains in the sunshine, and seems able to endure the greatest heat, but also the greatest cold before all other quadrupeds. It marks its endless marches from north to south and from south to north by its skeletons, which bleach for many a year in the sun. Now, when the grass was short, the whole surface in the distance had a whitish tinge, which is produced by these bones, out of which the skulls rise like shining dots. ”

“ They travel in migrating herds of thousands, and are found from Texas to British America. Their food Page 221 consists chiefly of grass, of which the "Buffalo grass" is their great delight. They graze and travel through the day and rest by night. ”

“ We sow almost exclusively Timothy and Clover, when there are at least 20 different grasses required by our great diversity of soils, and of these three or four might often be sown together with profit; especially in seeding down fields intended for pasture, we might advantageously use a greater variety and abundance of seed. I believe that there are grasses not yet adopted and hardly recognized by the great body of our farmers—the buffalo-grass of the prairies for one—that will yet be grown and prized over a great part of our country. ”

“ Muggs christened the animal Cynocephalus, and soon afterward sold him to Mr. Colon, who was of an economical turn, for the use of his son Semi.
"I have heard," said the thoughtful father, "that the buffalo grass of the plains is very nourishing. All that the poor steed needs is care and fat pastures. Semi can give him the former, and over the latter our future journey lies. I have also learned that what is especially needed in a hunting horse is steadiness, and this quality the animal certainly possesses." ”

“ The legs are especially slender, and appear to be out of all proportion to the body; indeed, it seems wonderful that they are able to bear it, and that the animals can at the same time exhibit the activity they seemed possessed of.
In summer the buffalo finds an abundance of food by cropping the sweet grass which springs up after the fires so frequent in one part or other of the prairies. ”

“ Here our party was at Hays, the objective point of our journey, and our base of operations against the treasures of the past and present, which alike covered the country around. This little town is in the midst of the great buffalo range. Away upon every side of it stretch those vast plains where the short, crisp grass curls to the ridges, like an African's kinky hair to his skull. Bison and wild horse, antelope and wolf, for weeks were now to be our neighbors, appearing and vanishing over the great expanse like large and small piratical crafts on an ocean. ”

“ This great pasture land covers Western Texas, Indian Territory, Kansas, Nebraska, and Dakota, Eastern New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, and extends far into British America. The southerly and south-easterly portions produce the largest growth of grass, but it lacks the nutritious qualities of that covering the higher and drier lands farther north and west. Rank-growing and bottom-land grasses contain mostly water: they remain green until killed by frost, when their substance flows back to the root, or is destroyed by the action of the elements. ”

“ Eastward of that meridian, the principal objects which strike the eye of a traveler are the absence of timber, and the immense expanse of prairie, covered with the verdure of rich grasses, and highly adapted for pasturage. Wherever they are not disturbed by the vicinity of man, large herds of buffalo give animation to this country. Westward of Laramie river, the region is sandy, and apparently sterile; and the place of the grass is usurped by the artemisia and other odoriferous plants, to whose growth the sandy soil and dry air of this elevated region seem highly favorable. ”

“ We find in our sixteen miles travel to-day that the grass is very poor in the Platte bottoms, having been devoured by the buffalo herds. These bottoms are from two to four miles in width, and are intersected, at every variety of interval, by paths made by the buffaloes, from the bluffs to the river. These paths are remarkable in their appearance, being about fifteen inches wide, and four inches deep, and worn into the soil as smoothly as they could be cut with a spade. ”