How I gather leather - mark a book to all the furtraders and buy the cut leather. At first they won't spawn much unless someone else has been purchasing it. If the vendor has been actively selling and they "restock" they'll eventually work up to 999 in cut leather. You could set up a recall gathering macro periodically purchasing the leather if you want a pile of it.
6 gp per leather and some recall regs... for me it's easier to farm the gold while getting fame to sacrifice, possible loot drops etc and then set the gathering macro for leather versus all the needed point and clicking to harvest hides.
