Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/801

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DOMESTICATION OF THE BUFFALO.
781

centuries much more active than that on American soil. In eleven years Mr. Bedson's herd increased from five to ninety-seven, fourteen of the number having been disposed of before the sale to Mr. Jones. Of the eighty-three which he bought, there are eight adult crosses, or grades as they are called, and seventeen calves of 1888, pure and grade. It is Mr. Jones's intention thoroughly

Fig. 3.—Half-Blood Buffaloes. Cross between Buffalo Bull and Domestic Cow.

to test various strains with a view to ascertain which are best adapted for grazing herds on the plains of the Northwest. In producing a robe he has already attained what he calls a "seal-skin buffalo," from crossing with black cattle.

At Silver Heights, five miles from Winnipeg, Sir Donald Smith has a small herd of buffalo-crosses presenting unique points in beauty and docility. Elsewhere in Manitoba, in Alberta Territory, and in Minnesota, it is proposed to parallel Mr. Jones's enterprise of Garden City.

It has been suggested as an additional advantage of technical education that it will afford room for the cultivation of what may be called man's instinctive intelligence, for which hardly any provision is made in the present systems. "While the rational faculties and purely physical capabilities are elaborately cared for, practically nothing is done, save in the most casual and haphazard way, for improving the faculties which lie upon the border-land of instinct and reason," for the development of such powers, for example, as the exquisite adjustment and co-ordination that give the cricketer's skill in catching a passing ball, or the violinist's in eliciting a succession of enrapturing harmonies from his instrument. Genius can not be manufactured or conferred, but the average of the instinctive intelligence and facility might be greatly raised by well-directed training.