Page:Don Coronado through Kansas.djvu/144

133 CSHIPS" USED FOR FUEL. 133 [counties of Kansas where they stUl have the bufEalo ' grass, the farmers are using this material for fuel; iand where the cattle pasture on this grass, their children wUl go to the places where cattle are kept and turn up on edge chips for fuel. This is done by placing two chips together is this form — "A" — ^which is about the same as hacking bricks in a briCk-yard. ' By this method the sun and wind soon absorb every particle of moisture; then it is fit for use and the men folks haul them home. Mind you, this material gets as hard as coal when thoroughly dry. The grinding ■mill of the buffalo may have been, different from the modern cow or steer, but it would require an analytic cal chemist to discern the difference in the chip of a. buffalo and that of a domesticated animal. In the, spring of 1907 many fuel piles were seen in Ellis and Trego counties. You put clean wood into the stove; to cook with, but others use dirty coal which if takea into your hand wiU leave a smudge, whereas "chips'* are as clean as clean can be, and the meal cooked with it is just as relishable as that cooked by steam on some of the ocean liners, and much more so; for if there is anything that is nauseating it is steam- cooked victuals, even hogs don't like such cooking. But the buffalo grass is fast being superseded by the civilized vegetation which seems to follow in the wake of the settlement of a new country. You may think cew nutmire an awful nasty thing to have around the kitchen but here is sometMng few persons kno^ about,
 * "Without fear of contradiction that in the wciscern
 * "chips" when permitted to dry in the sun make the
 * very hottest of fires; right now the women folks and