The gathering of bones became a common industry as early as 1872, during which year 1,135,300 pounds were shipped over the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad.  In the year following the same road shipped 2,743,100 pounds, and in 1874 it handled 6,914,950 pounds more.  This trade continued from that time on until the plains have been gleaned so far back from the railway lines that it is no longer profitable to seek them.  For that matter, however, it is said that south of the Union Pacific nothing worth the seeking now remains.

The building of the Northern Pacific Railway made possible the shipment of immense quantities of dry bones.  Even as late as 1886 overland travelers saw at many of the stations between Jamestown, Dakota, and Billings, Montana, immense heaps of bones lying alongside the track awaiting shipment.  In 1885 a single firm shipped over 200 tons of bones from Miles City.

The valley of the Missouri River was gleaned by teamsters who gathered bones from as far back as 100 miles and hauled them to the river for shipment on the steamers.  An operator who had eight wagons in the business informed me that in order to ship bones on the river steamers it was necessary to crush them, and that for crushed bones, shipped in bags, a Michigan fertilizer company paid $18 per ton.  Uncrushed bones, shipped by the railway, sold for $12 per ton.

It is impossible to ascertain the total amount or value of the bone product, but it is certain that it amounted to many thousand tons, and in value must have amounted to some hundreds of thousands of dollars.  But for the great number of railroads, river steamers, and sea-going vessels (from Texas ports) engaged in carrying this product, it would have cut an important figure in the commerce of the country, but owing to the many interests between which it was divided it attracted little attention.

Meat.—­The amount of fresh buffalo meat cured and marketed was really very insignificant.  So long as it was to be had at all it was so very abundant that it was worth only from 2 to 3 cents per pound in the market, and many reasons combined to render the trade in fresh buffalo meat anything but profitable.  Probably not more than one one-thousandth of the buffalo meat that might have been saved and utilized was saved.  The buffalo carcasses that were wasted on the great plains every year during the two great periods of slaughter (of the northern and southern herds) would probably have fed to satiety during the entire time more than a million persons.

As to the quality of buffalo meat, it may be stated in general terms that it differs in no way whatever from domestic beef of the same age produced by the same kind of grass.  Perhaps there is no finer grazing ground in the world than Montana, and the beef it produces is certainly entitled to rank with the best.  There are many persons who claim to recognize a difference between the taste of buffalo