Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 145, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1911 — BUFFALO AND CATTLE [ARTICLE]

BUFFALO AND CATTLE

Company Is Formed in Texas to Introduce New Species. Experts Declare. That Meat of Cattalo Is Better Than Beef and That it Possesses Many Other Dls- ; tinct Advantages. Goodnight, Tel.—-A company has been formed herb for the purpose of taking over the famous “J. A.” ranch of Col. Charles Goodnight and engaging In the breeding of buffaloes and cattle on a much larger scale than has been done heretofore, and also to make a specialty of breeding Persian and Karakule sheep, elk, antelope and Other animals which can be turned to profitable account The present herd of full-blooded buffaloes Upon the ranch numbers 100 head. There are 75 head of mixed breed or eattaloes, 300 head of Persian sheep, 43 head of Karakule sheep, 10 elk, 15 antelope and 100 head of black polled Angus cattle. It is planned by the company to make the buffalo herd worth not less than 11,000,000 in ten years. Colonel Goodnight has devoted thirty years to propagating the buffalo and crossing it with polled Angus cattle. He has long been noted as the greatest breeder of buffaloes and cattaloes in the world. He has reached that time in life when he wants to prepare for a continuationjjf the work he has so well begun after he has laid aside life’s cares and burdens. It was this desire that has prompted the organization of a strong financial company to take over his valuable holdings. Associated with him In the work are younger -men, who are enthusiastic over the possibilities of making the buffalo of great commercial value to this country. “I hope and expect that the industry that I have inaugurated will be perpetuated and fill a unique page in the history of a generation yet unborn," said Colonel Goodnight “In the year 1878 I captured four buffalo calves, one male and three heifers. And while I have sold over |20,000 worth of their increase, I still have a large herd of full blood buffaloes, and the only cattalo herd in the world. “By breeding them with the famous polled Angus cattle that were imported from Scotland, 1 have thep from one-sixteenth buffalo on up to half breed or eattaloes. I have been able to produce in the mixed breed, the extra ribs of the buffalo, which are fourteen on each side, while the ordinary cattle have only thirteen ribs on each side. The cattalo make a larger and hardier cattle and will cut a greater per cent of meat than any other cattle/ They require less food and are longer lived cattle. “As yet ho one knows how long a buffalo lives. I have three full-blooded buffalo cows, each twenty-eight years old, that now have young calves." Colonel Goodnight has sold many buffaloes since he began the business of breeding them, more than thirty years ago. Animals from his herd are in the public parks of New York, Denver, Chicago, San Antonio, national game preserve of Yellowstone park, and in Germany and England. He received from 8225 to 8500 a head for the animals. He recently refused an offer from the United States government of 8600 a head for twenty-five of the animals. The advantages which the cattalo have over ordinary eattle, according to the claims of Colonel Goodnight, are that the former do not tramp or muss up their feed or water; they require less food, less water and less salt; can live on what common cattle refuse; can live longer without food and water, with less loss; have the wild In-

stinct against overfeeding; weigh more to the bulk; have better shoulders than any cattle known, giving more of the valuable forequarter meat, and cut more net meat than any other cattle under the same conditions. The oleo, or fat, in cattalo differs from that in other cattle, having better flavor, being healthier for the human stomach than ordinary fats, and serving excellently as a cooking fat. Their meat excels that of the polled Angus, which tops the London, market. Its meat is superior in gram and flavor to beet and a little darker in color, with the fat better marblelzed. Cattalorightly handled are extremely gentle, inclined neither to fight nor tn run, as do their ancestors. They share the buffalo’s heritage of more brains and memory than common cattle, according to Colonel Goodnight’s judgment and observations. ' Cattalo of more than one-quarter buffalo blood have been found under test absolutely immune to “blackleg,” and the disease has been able to take hold of the onequarter strain very rarely.