Where the buffalo roam

The article "Buffalo Roam Onto US Menus," Jan. 30, reiterates the popular but erroneous notion that buffaloes are easier on the land than cattle.

Buffalo and cattle have essentially the same diet and grazing habits. They both stimulate grass growth by cropping it, fertilize the soil with their droppings, and break up the soil with their hooves for aeration and reseeding.

Buffalo are heavier and stay more bunched up than cattle. They assimilate their food better and eat certain foliage that cattle do not.

Regardless of these differences, the ratio per acre to cow/calf unit is about the same. It is upon this ratio that the health of the land depends. The land will suffer from overstocking by buffalo or cattle. E. B. Severin, Alpine, Texas

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