Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 3/Sheep Husbandry in Oregon
THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN OREGON.
THE PIONEER ERA OF DOMESTIC SHEEP HUSBANDRY.
The materials of history are not yet ripe enough to give us authentic data of the very first introduction of domesticated sheep into Oregon, and will not be perhaps until the historical gleaner is admitted to the records of the Hudson Bay Company, the rule of which was superseded over the valley of the Columbia River between 1840 and 1843, by the pioneer American home builders.
The earliest mention of sheep in Oregon is by John Ball, who came with N. J. Wyeth in 1832, and who became the first school-teacher by instruction of a dozen boys, sons of officers of the Hudson Bay Company. In the winter of 1832-33, in a letter to his parents, dated Vancouver, February 23, 1833, Mr. Ball says: "This is a post of the Hudson Bay Company, which extends its trade in furs from Canada to this place. Here they have extensive farming operations, raise wheat, corn, pease, potatoes, * * * and have cattle, sheep and hogs.' In a letter to the writer, Dr. W. F. Tolmie mentions that "by the use of sheep and rape the late Daniel Harvey was in the early 30's producing better crops of wheat from the company's farm on Mill Plain than I now (1880) see the American farmers getting."
The next record of sheep in Oregon is in Bancroft's Oregon, Vol. I, p. 338, quoting Wilkes for the fact of sheep being at the Waiilatpu Mission in 1841, having been obtained from the Hawaiian Islands. On page 346 the same historian tells us the Nez Perces, in 1842, owned 32 neat cattle, 10 sheep and 40 hogs, and that the Cayuses had 70 head of cattle, mostly cows, and also a few "sheep earned by herding the flock belonging to the mission."
This, doubtless, was the result of the Whitman mission policy of teaching the natives spinning and weaving, and we have good reason for believing Dr. Whitman was very anxious to have the United States add sheep to the medium of purchase of the native right to the soil, as one of the best agencies of civilization. The savage massacre, which destroyed this heroic man and all his plans, wiped out all connection between them and the American home builders, then confined to western Oregon, and we have no evidence that any sheep were in western Oregon, except at Vancouver, prior to the second cattle drive from California in 1842-43, when Jacob P. Lease, an American settler in California, yielding to the advice of Capt. Joseph Gale and his associates, started his flock of 900 head in the wake of Gale's drive of 1,250 head of cattle and 600 head of horses and mules to sell to the Oregon settlers.
According to Hon. J. W. Nesmith, who spent the winter of 1843 with Captain Gale, there were 3,000 sheep in this drive, 2,000 of which we may reasonably believe were for the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, formed by officers of the Hudson Bay Company as means of stocking the country from the Sound southward to the north bank of the Columbia, which most of them hoped to fall to Great Britain on the settlement of the Oregon boundary question. Bancroft mentions 2,000 sheep being brought overland from California about this date by the Hudson Bay Company, indefinitely, but, as we know Dr. W. F. Tolmie was placed at Fort Nesqually about the time of their arrival, the supposition is reasonably probable that Wm. Glen Rae, the officer in charge of the Hudson Bay Company's station in California and son-in-law of Doctor McLoughlin, bought 2,000 or more sheep and furnished men to drive them in company with Mr. Lease, under Captain Gale's leadership, the result of which was to end cattle monopoly in Oregon, which the first cattle drive in 1836–37 can hardly be said to have done. There was good reason for this being done quietly by the gentlemen forming the Puget Sound Agricultural Association. That they were playing for empire was no secret, but they did not trumpet their plans and objects. Captain Gale's movement reached the Willamette settlement in seventy-five days from California, the sheep in the rear of the horses and cattle. The writer was informed by one of the drivers that "though they had but seven guns, they fought Indians nearly every day till they crossed Rogue River;" that "though they lost 200 [20?] head at the crossing of Klamath River, the increase on the way more than made up all losses and caused them to use from 4 to 8 pack horses to carry forward young lambs.' The sheep were as low in quality as they could well be, light of body and bone, coarse and light of fleece, of all colors of white, black, ring-streaked and grizzled, having in an eminent degree the tenacity of life common to all scrub stock, and giving their increase at all seasons, though mostly in spring. They responded quickly to any cross for improvement, especially toward the Merino blood.In 1844 the first sheep were brought across the plains from Missouri by Joshua Shaw and son. They were for meat on the way, should the need arise, and soon fell into the daily movement with the loose cattle, occasioning little trouble, but gave profit and consideration to the family after their arrival in Oregon.
In 1847 sheep husbandry in Oregon received very important accessions. A Mr. Fields brought a flock, which, as all-purpose sheep, have never yet been surpassed, if equaled, in Oregon. He, however, and his wife, were both stricken with measles as they arrived, and died without attaining domicile. His estate was administered upon by Daniel Waldo, who wisely sold the sheep in small lots, and they thus became the foundation of many flocks. A Mr. Headerick, William Turpin, and Johnson Mulkey each brought a flock. E. Patton also brought a large flock, settling in Yamhill County, and Mulkey in Benton, so that this important pastoral interest spread widely over the valley.
In 1848 Joseph Watt—who crossed the plains in 1844 and went back in 1846—returned to Oregon with his father's family, bringing 330 head of sheep, some of them Saxon and some of Spanish Merino blood;[1] and the machinery of a carding mill, this latter attracting even more attention than the sheep, which latter were now attracting less of public notice as this year began by calling many men to the fighting field against the Indians who had committed the Whitman massacre. This was followed soon by the discovery of gold in California, the rush to which and feverish labor and exposure there were more destructive to life than wars with the natives. It stopped home building development for a time, put sheep on the market at $5.00 to $6.00 per head, but soon began to take all that was fit for mutton for driving overland for food for the miners and others. This very soon took from Oregon many more and better sheep than had originally been received from California. The writer, who started with a small lot in 1849, sold his wethers to go to California in 1850 at $5.00 per head, but readily sold ewe lambs to his neighbors in 1853 at $12 per head, and refused an offer of $15 per head for lambs by a California buyer. Production had been neglected by so many who had been to the mines and got a little gold that food of all kinds was for a time at almost panic prices wheat $6.00 per bushel at Salem; mutton sheep $16 per head in Portland. This affected all business and called reflecting men back to the land. In 1851 Hiram Smith brought three thoroughbred Merino rams from Ohio, hoping to initiate a trade, but it was too early and he turned to the importation of mules instead.
In 1854 Dr. W. F. Tolmie began to sell off the sheep of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and after disposing of all he could north of the Columbia River brought 1,500 and sold them in Marion County. They were of the California importation of 1842, improved by such importations of British breeds as the doctor could induce the company, whose agent he was, to buy. Some good Leicesters and Southdowns and indifferent Merinos were used with great benefit, but the sheep had been low kept and were affected with scab, and for that reason were a bad bargain to all purchasers, as little was known of that disease in Oregon at that time.
In 1857 Martin Jesse, of Yamhill County, Oregon, returning from California gold mines, heard the call for a sheep sale from the deck of a ship at San Francisco. He found on inquiry that the stock were thoroughbred Merinos from the Camden Park flock of the Macarthur Bros, of New South Wales, descended from the Kew flock of King George III of England, which were drawn from the Neggretti flocks of the Marchioness del Campo di Alange, by royal grant of the King of Spain, who only could permit exportation, for which courtesy the English King thanked the noble lady by a present of eight splendid English coach horses.[2] The start of Macarthur's Australian Merinos were those drawn from the English King's flock and imported into New South Wales in 1804 by Capt. John Macarthur, founder of the Camden Park flock and father of the firm of brothers who sold the sheep, herein mentioned, to J. H. Williams, United States Consul at Sydney, N. S. W., for shipment to California in March, 1857. The ship had been driven out of her course and both food and water for the sheep scarce. The latter had been given at last out of bottles and the sheep saved were saved by that means. Mr. Jesse purchased 20 head of them and transferred them to the ship he had engaged his passage to Portland on. Thus were brought the means of reproduction of the golden fleece to Oregon. They could not be watered on the ship, but by drinking out of a bottle until they were landed on the farm of Coffin & Thompson of Dayton, Oregon.
In 1858 R. C. Geer, of Marion County, had imported Southdowns direct from England. In 1860 Hon. Benjamin Stark, United States Senator for Oregon, sent a fine Cotswold to Oregon, and a little later John Cogswell, of Lane County, imported New Oxfordshire and Hampshire Downs. Early in this year Messrs. Jones & Rockwell imported and sold in Western Oregon 45 head of thoroughbred Merinos, mostly of the Spanish type, so improved by Vermont breeders as to justify naming them American Merinos, which they at this time began to do. Flocks and herds had so accumulated in 1860 and the wild grasses had so given way, that without reserved pastures or other winter feed little beef or mutton could be found in good condition for market in early spring. The wool product, at first selling high, had declined for lack of a market, there being from 1853 to 1858 only one buyer in Portland for export, whose uniform price was ten cents per pound. It traded among farmers for stocking yarn and flock beds at twenty-five cents per pound, and some house manufacture began even before 1854 in the outside settlements. The writer went to San Francisco in 1856 dressed entirely in clothes of his wife's make from the fleece. Returning home in April he found Joseph Watt of Amity well advanced towards an organization of wool growing farmers for building a woolen factory at Salem.
From the pen of L. E. Pratt, who gave his assistance to securing the proper machinery and threw his personal fortune into the project by coming from Massachusetts to set it up, we have an excellent manuscript history of the inception, early struggles against high rates of interest, frontier and commercial conditions to success, change of ownership, bad management, business wreck and mysterious destruction by fire of this pioneer factory. For the writer's purpose it is sufficient to say here that it was a wool-growers' enterprise, started by Joseph Watt, one of the leading pioneer flock owners, joined by a few men looking to public life in the community, and "it was incorporated in 1856 with Hon. Geo. H. Williams as president; Alfred Stanton, vice president; Joseph Watt, W. H. Rector, Joseph Holman, E. M.Barnum, L. F. Grover, directors; Joseph G. Wilson, secretary, and John D. Boone, treasurer."
On Mr. Watt (who was more a carpenter than farmer) was devolved the construction of the building and the supervision of construction of the canal from the Santiam River into the channel of Mill Creek, as an abundant and constant water power, which has since been used by other and important interests in Salem. It would be amazing, were it not a serious beginning of so important an enterprise, to learn that when W. H. Rector was sent East to order the machinery and secure a competent man to set it up his first order was for $12,000 worth of machinery for which he had $2,500 and his face to pay. It was reported of him at the time that in answer to the astonished looks of the manufacturers, when he told them the amount of cash he had with him, he said: "Look in my face, gentlemen. If you can not trust me when I say you shall have your pay, my trip is a failure." "Uncle Billy" got the machinery with the aid of his chosen manager, then with him. Mr. Rector's friend and neighbor, Daniel Waldo, a stock-raising farmer, proved the chief financial support of the enterprise while starting, maintaining his trust in it till being wrecked by mismanagement he proved the chief loser.
The year of 1860 may be said to end the pioneer period of the domestic stock interests of Oregon, especially of sheep husbandry. In addition to the imported improved sheep already mentioned, A. McKinley had retired from the Hudson Bay Company and brought with him as a settler in Marion County some of the latest imported South Downs and New Leicestershires of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company.
Visiting and examining the first Merinos brought to Salem by Messrs. Jones and Rockwell, I turned away unbelieving on the latter's answer to my question of weight of annual fleece yield from these sheep to me small compared to the Field's stock I had been breeding for ten years with comparative success, so I turned to history for light, as to the value of the breed for wool production. By this means I was broadened out much as a man and very ready in November of the same year to entertain the offer of Joseph Holman to sell me at cost the undivided half of ten head .of thoroughbred Merino sheep for $512, consisting of one French Merino ram and one ewe of the same blood, 2 ewes of Spanish Merino type as improved by Vermont breeders, and 6 ewes, part of the descendants from the Macarthur's Australian Merinos, brought to Oregon by Martin Jesse as herein related. Messrs. J. L. Parrish and Joseph Holman were the first purchasers of ewes from both the Martin Jesse importation of Macarthur's Australian Merinos and of the Jones & Rockwell importation from Vermont. The following are copies of my agreement with Mr. Holman and of the certificates which came into my possession thereby. I interbred to American Merinos all the Australian ewes of the Holman and Parrish purchase for two years after coming into ownership of the certificates:
SALEM, Marion County, Oregon, Nov. 29, 1860.Be it known to all men, that we, Joseph Holman and John Minto, have this day become joint owners of a lot of ten head of Merino sheep, consisting of one ram and nine ewes; and that we agree to remain joint owners of the same until November the 29th, 1864, under the following agreement, to wit: The sheep are to be left in the care of said John Minto, who, on his part, agrees to take care of the same according to his best skill and judgment, to keep a correct account of all sales made from said sheep or their increase, and pay to said Holman one half of the amount of such sales.
The said Joseph Holman on his part agrees to pay said Minto at the rate of $10 per head per annum for keeping his half of said sheep and their increase after they are one year old; provided, that if said sheep shall yield more than twenty-five per cent profit, he shall pay said Minto at the rate of $12 per head.
Joseph Holman.
John Minto.We hereby certify that the 250 thoroughbred Merino ewes, 28 thoroughbred Merino bucks, sold by us to J. H. Williams, Esq., Consul of the United States at Sydney, for shipment to California, were bred by us on this estate, being descendants in a direct line from the Merino sheep imported in 1804-5 by our father, the late John Macarthur, Esq., and by him selected from the Royal Kew flock, obtained from the Spanish Government by his majesty, the late King George III.COPY OF A CERTIFICATE OF FINE WOOL SHEEP.
There has been no intermixture of any but undoubted Merino blood in the Camden Park flock. We have crossed only with rams of Merino race derived from the French Imperial flock of Rambouillet. Neither the sheep now sold by us nor the flock from which they are taken have ever had scab, catarrh, or any other infections.
A first-class medal was awarded to us for the wool of this flock exhibited at Paris Industrial Exhibition of all nations in 1855, in reference to which the following passage is extracted from a letter from Sir William Macarthur to James Macarthur, dated Paris, 12th August, 1855: "Of the samples exhibited of the wool of our thoroughbred Merino flock, taken from about 150 fleeces of the shearing of 1853, the jurors said in my presence that they were free from the defect often found in Australian wool of hollowness or spongeness of fibre, and combine in a remarkable degree all the most valuable qualities which distinguish German and Australian wools, preserving the true old Merino type in the greatest beauty."
The sheep are branded in the right cheek with the letter "M," which runs into a "U," the mark of our thoroughbred flock; they have also a pitch brand on the outside of the fleece upon the weathers of "J."
Signed: Jas. W. Macarthur.Camden Park, N. S. Wales, 28th April, 1857.To certify that we have this day sold to J. H. Williams, Esq., consul at Sydney for the United States, six thoroughbred Merino rams, in addition to the [twenty?] eight included in our certificate of the 28th instant. The pedigree and other remarks in that certificate apply equally to the six rams now sold, which had been reserved for our own use, and are considered to be very choice animals.
Signed: Jas. W. Macarthur.Camden Park, N. S. Wales, 30th April, 1857.
San Francisco, 29th July, 1857.This is to certify that the above are the true copies of the original certificates.J. W. MacondreyDayton, Yamhill County, March 10th, 1860.This is to certify that Messrs. J. L. Parrish and Joseph Holman, of Salem, have this day bought of us (8) eight thoroughbred Merino ewes, part and descendants of the original flock spoken of in the above certificates.
J. G. Thompson and
Dayton, Oregon.
P. M. Coffin,
COPY.
We have this day sold to Messrs. J. L. Parrish and Joseph Holman:
1860.
March 31—$500.00
1,100.00
100.00
$1,700 00Received payment in cash and notes.
R. J. Jones and
S. B. Rockwell.
This certifies that Messrs. Holman and Parrish of Salem, Oregon, have this day purchased of us one French buck, "Revenue," which was our first choice in all that lot of bucks, and also two French Merino ewes and four American Merino ewes.
These sheep are thoroughbred and raised in Addison County, Vt., and imported by us direct from Vermont to this state in January and February last.
The French Merinos are the largest fine-wooled sheep in the world. The American capable of producing the most wool from a given area of land. Both of these varieties are highly prized in Vermont, where sheep breeding is carried to greater perfection than in any other part of the world. While we readily grant that the Saxon sheep have wool of a little finer texture, yet we claim that our French and American Merinos shear annually more than double the quantity of the Saxons. The wool is unsurpassed in its felting properties and makes a cloth suited to the wants of nine tenths of the masses. A cross of the bucks with the common sheep of Oregon will, we believe, add about two pounds extra to the lambs and double the price of it in market.
R. J. Jones and
S. B. Rockwell.
THE ERA OF EXPANSION OF SHEEP HUSBANDRY FROM THE CASCADES TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
In the autumn of 1861 Joseph Watt, R. P. Boise, and Lucien Heath associated themselves together in the enterprise of sending 4,500 head of sheep into the Yakima country, east of the Cascades. It was a world of rich grass, in the condition of sun-made hay. There was no provision for winter feed. Late in December a snowfall covered all of the Columbia Valley. The weather set in clear and cold and gave fourteen weeks continuous sleighing at Salem in Western Oregon. East and north all weather conditions were more severe, which made the season the most destructive to live stock known to the white race of men on this coast. This first sheep venture east of the Cascades was represented by 45 living skeletons in March, 1862. It crippled Mr. Watt financially, but did not shake his faith in the upper Columbia Valley as a grand pastoral region. Mr. Heath, who had been very sanguine of large and certain profits, said: "I will never own another sheep as an investment." Cattle and horses had been colonized from west to east of the Cascades, and these, also, were almost a total loss, except in the lake region of Southeastern Oregon. This longest snow-lay had been preceded by floods in Western Oregon, and some loss of sheep had occurred by drowning on the Willamette bottom lands. This unusual season had no apparent deterrent effect on the movement to Eastern Oregon and Washington. Horses, cattle, and sheep were taken without attempts to provide winter feed in the case of the two former, and generally very inadequate efforts in the latter. The ranges were wide and mixture of flocks on them was very rare. Herding as a business had to be learned by most Americans, and general management was also much a matter of experiment. Some owners sent to Scotland for shepherds and their collies; but to them the conditions were so new and wild—attempts to herd thousands in a band, where the herdsman had been trained to hundreds; he lived alone and did his own cooking, not seeing his owner more than once in two weeks, and sometimes not for the entire summer season; these imported herdsmen did not satisfy themselves nor their employers. The passage of the homestead law attracted the attention of squatters and others in Australia, and an immigration from there of practical sheep keepers set in, which was not entirely stopped by Australian lawmakers trying to better the land laws of the United States. These Australians took hold of the range situation much more readily than the Scotch, and some of them became, for a time at least, fairly successful flock masters; but were notably more harsh to their employees than Americans, and often themselves seemed to fall victims to the drink habit. In the end Americans made the best success, both as herders and flock masters. Not rarely a young man starting as herder ended as a wealthy sheep and land owning banker. Among these were sons of Oregon pioneer families and frontiersmen who had never handled sheep before. It seemed to make little difference where the man started from, or what his previous occupation or condition had been. The field was so inviting that men who proved to have no vocation for it entered it. Farms were sold or mortgaged west of the Cascade range, and the value lost in a few years in the range country, chiefly because of inadequate provision for winter feeding. In no case within the writer's knowledge was there failure where adequate winter feed was kept ready for a possible bad season. Thus it was that, though the range was strewn with business failures, development went on and men succeeded where others failed. Choice sheep camps became the sites of towns and cities, and favorite lambing grounds became rich grain farms. Dufur, Antelope, Arlington, Condon, Fossil, Heppner, Maysville, Moro, Adams, and many other towns are illustrations of this. Arlington began as a public shearing corral, the wool being taken from the bank of the river by passing steamboats. The means of crossing the common sheep towards the merino was at first derived from the few pioneer breeders in Western Oregon. The common or coarse wooled sheep were mainly supplied from Western Oregon, though some were driven in by both sides of the Cascade range as a result of heat and drouth in California in 1864, whence starving flocks were driven from the parched plains to the mountains, and across them to Oregon, Nevada, Washington, Idaho, and Utah. In 1866 a countermovement of stock sheep took place, and some hundred thousand head were taken from Western Oregon to California to restock pastures in that state. The toll gate keeper in South Umpqua Canyon reported passage of 80,000 head southward that season, and considerable numbers were driven up the middle fork of the Willamette and across the lake region of Southeastern Oregon to Pit River Valley, and thence across the Sierra Nevada to the plains of California. During these years of the early 60's sheep pastures were curtailed in favor of wheat growing in Western Oregon, and this added to the rapidly increasing flocks east of the Cascades in Oregon by colonizing, whence they were spread northward, east, and southeast, into Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Utah, and later to the Dakotas and Wyoming as stock sheep; and to Lincoln, Neb., and on to Chicago as mutton sheep. Hundreds of thousands of Oregon bred sheep have been trailed through the dryest and highest, least settled country, between Eastern Oregon and the corn bearing lands of Nebraska. The mutton sheep trail in this direction kept as near as possible to the old Oregon trail over which the first sheep were driven west in 1844, until the close of the century, when local settlements and locally owned sheep and other stock, and especially locally owned watering places, so intervened that shipping by railroad had become the prevailing practice as most economical in 1892, and "trailing sheep" has fallen or is now falling into past methods.[3] Up to 1890 stock sheep from Eastern Oregon were purchased and driven on foot to the ranges of Eastern Washington, Idaho, Montana, and mutton sheep reached Chicago via the feeding farms of Nebraska, Kansas, and Iowa; but by 1892 buyers for North and South Dakota generally preferred to ship by rail.
The history of the occupation and development of Dufur and Heppner will indicate the general growth of well-watered sheep camps to towns and cities, and centers of wheat growing. The Dufur family, after some years conducting a dairy farm near Portland, concluded to change to sheep husbandry in the early '70s. They purchased from Joseph Beezley, a resident of The Dalles, about 1870, a homestead sheep ranch on a small mill stream there, called "Fifteen-Mile" (estimated that distance from The Dalles). They moved onto this farm and starting with a moderate flock began, by irrigation, to farm for the winter care of their sheep. Excepting a few acres under fence at Four-Mile and Eight-Mile, watering places, no fences existed between The Dalles and the Dufur farm at that date. They enlarged their crops as their flocks increased, and were the first to purchase swamp lands near the base of Mt. Hood for summer range for their flocks.[4] From first a house of entertainment for settlers locating further south, and next a blacksmith shop, gristmill, and post office, the seeds of a rural town were planted and rapidly grew, until the lands around and beyond from The Dalles were occupied, first for grazing, then for wheat growing. Within about ten years a corporate town had grown, supported largely by stock-raising families, who builded for winter residence and winter school facilities. The district now produces about 1,000,000 bushels of wheat. Heppner was planted by a young unmarried Englishman, who brought capital to buy a flock of sheep and the small gristmill there, erected by a Frenchman; he took the cream of the beautiful grazing lands near and sold out to a grain-raising compatriot from North Britain, who made flour and mill feed his chief staples. J. Graham Hewison, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, England, thus started with the best 3,000 ewes as a wool growing flock money could then buy in Eastern Oregon, and kept it to the highest standard natural conditions would permit, and sold out at a fair profit when the pressure of population claimed his location for food production. His example was good for his day, except that it drew into the surrounding country other young Britishers with capital sufficient to buy a flock of sheep, and who. caring for neither citizenship nor land ownership, flourished for a season as grazing freebooters, sometimes impudently gleaning the grass of the American homestead settler up to their fences under circumstances which justified the latter's resentment and resistance to the imminent danger of both the property and the persons of these grazing scavengers. Indeed, it is safe to say that during the years of expansion of sheep husbandry over the portion of Oregon west of the Blue Mountains, more lives have been taken and more property destroyed over range feuds, provoked by a marauding spirit, than by the racial wars with the natives; and even in the last disturbance of the latter kind in Oregon, most of the lives lost were believed to be in revenge for injuries received or fancied, by the Cayuse Indians in strife for grass in the Blue Mountains between the native owners of hirsels of ponies and herders of the flocks of the white men. More sheep herders were murdered on the pony ranges of the Cayuse tribe, under cover of the "Piute raid," than of all other classes of men, and no one acquainted with local conditions believed that the murder of Mr. Jewett (himself a highly respected man and a leading flock master) was entirely clear of his line of business.
In these contests the numbers and the apparent effects of the close feeding of sheep on the pasturage have often arrayed against them and their owners, feelings of prejudice not justified by ultimate results, and added bitterness to these separate lines of pastoral industries until in some localities slaughter of sheep, and even murder of herders, occurred which could not be punished under legal forms at the time and place of the action, because unbiased juries could not be formed.
The writer speaks here from personal knowledge gathered from the herders in their camps just as the Piute raiders arrived near Pilot Rock. Knowing the defenseless condition of the Rock Creek settlers at the time the trouble with Joseph's band arose in the Wallowa country, I secured twenty stand of needle guns from Governor Chadwick, for the Rock Creek settlement, and took charge of six repeating rifles to forward to sons and friends of Wm. J. Herren at Heppner, and leaving Salem on the night of the Fourth of July, on which date General Howard's order appeared in The Oregonian, to the effect that the raiders would leave the Blue Mountains and cross the Columbia River between the mouth of the John Day and Walla Walla. Having sons and other kinsmen in that country, I got among the herders in the Blue Mountains on July 8, twenty miles southeast of Heppner, near Burton's sheep camp, where Frank Maddock arrested a party of Umatilla Indians, and was giving the aid of ammunition and the comfort of my company at the very time the soldiers were throwing shells from Pilot Rock into the position they supposed the Indians to occupy. I reached Heppner that day and found the citizens had a rude fort completed and were awaiting the arrival of Thomas Ayers, who had been sent to Umatilla Landing for arms, but he returned that day with the report of failure, as the community had received one hundred guns when Joseph's raid occurred. Next day at noon I met Messrs. Laing and Varney, heavily armed, on their way to learn the fate of their herders and flocks on Butter Creek, from which point nothing had been heard at Heppner for some days.
CONFLICTS FOR RANGE.
Generally the cattle breeding interest preceded sheep keeping on the public lands of the range portion of the state, and opposed its extension, first, because cattle, being more able and more willing to defend their young against wild animals, could be left free to range at will among others, the chief trouble with their management being to find the calf as soon as possible after birth and brand it with the mark of ownership; second, because, while left free to find fresh pasture, cattle would not stay on range soiled by the presence of sheep grazing; and, third, if they did, until the district was overstocked, the larger animals would perish first for lack of food, so that the invasion of sheep into a cattle range greatly increased the labor of caring for cattle and greatly added to risk of loss by a severe winter; and by thus being the cause of cattle scattering more and more over the wide range, increased the labor while diminishing the profits of ranging cattle over all of Eastern Oregon, except on the damp lands which margin the shallow lake beds of Southeastern Oregon, where the conditions of grass and water are much more favorable for cattle than for sheep. There were no rights in the question; each party was gathering where it had not strewn. To these, what may be called natural causes of bitterness against the expansion of sheep husbandry in Oregon in common with all the range states, may be added the fact that the care of horses, cattle, and sheep, acts diversely on human character. The tending to horses and cattle on the range is done on horseback. A few hundred head of them will scatter over hundreds of miles of country, intermixing with the horses or herds of other owners. This brings owners and their employees to agree, upon set times, to co-operate in what are called "round-ups," that is, driving all stock of the same kind to a common center agreed upon, where each owner "cuts out' what he claims as his, and puts his brand on the young he finds for the first time. Of course there are large opportunities for mistakes, and for misappropriations, and with the most honest intentions contentions arise. The farther horses and cattle spread over a given range the greater the opportunity for theft, and as the very occupation tends to recklessness it becomes a school for crime, of which the horse ranging interest will show the greatest proportion for the number employed and the cattle interest the next most numerous. It is not claimed that sheep owners and their employees are immaculate, but the occupation of a herder is that of a protector. It is supposed, and is generally true, that a good shepherd has his flock within his sight every waking hour. In truth and justice, however, it must be said that it was cattle raisers who first acted on the perception that the only way for any grazing interest to peaceful, progressive success is ownership or legal control of the land necessary to support the stock kept. Some of those who have most conspicuously succeeded secured their ample holdings under the swamp and overflowed land law passed by the Oregon legislature subsequent to a similar law enacted in California, from which the Oregon law was copied, and it was the Glens and Frenches, who were really citizens of California, who were among the chief beneficiaries of the Oregon law.
The late John Devine grew very wealthy from cattle grazing in the Harney-Lake region, but he is understood to have been a citizen of Oregon and was a highly respected man. From the beginning of sheep keeping in Oregon as a range stock interest it was found well adapted to associated capital, but beyond such associations as may be effected by the members of one family, or a few friends with families, such associations are not popular with the people of Oregon, nor consistent with the pioneer purpose of filling an unoccupied country with industrious family life. The latest census reports indicate strongly that the effect of the large land ownership titles secured in the lake districts of Southeastern Oregon, by doubtful methods and almost entirely used for cattle, are proving disastrous to the counties containing them and seriously affect the growth of the state.
The following is taken from the Rural Northwest for August 1, 1902:—
The fact that half a dozen powerful companies own nearly all the deeded and irrigated land in Harney County, is not only most disastrous to that county but seriously affects the growth of the state. The census shows that the area of irrigated land in Harney County increased from 26,289 in 1889, to 111,090 acres in 1899, but the number of irrigators decreased from 240 in 1889 to 228 in 1899. Harney County has the unfortunate distinction of being the only county in Oregon with fewer farmers in 1900 than in 1890. It is also unfortunate in showing that the total value of the crops of its 111,090 acres of irrigated land in 1899 was only $232,423, or a little over $2.00 per acre. Under ordinarily favorable conditions 40 acres of irrigated land, with outlying range, will support a prosperous farmer, but if there were even a farmer to every 80 acres of irrigated land in Harney County, the number of irrigation farmers would be six times as large as it is, and Harney County's population would be three or four times as numerous as at present.
Ten years ago the writer, examining the condition of sheep husbandry for the United States Department of Agriculture, wrote to the then representative of Harney County to learn if public sentiment would favor the proposition to sell the range lands to the people at ten cents per acre, or just enough to pay the national government the cost of attaining title, survey, record and issuing patent. The answer was in the negative; fear of the rich land grabber and regard for the poor stockman's interests underlay the answer, but since then, increased confidence in the capacity of 40 acres of irrigated alfalfa land to produce hay sufficient to carry 3,000 head of the best grade of Merino sheep through an ordinary winter, there is no question but that the range portion of Oregon will soon have three times its present enumeration of families living in greater general comfort than was ever attainable when one herder took charge of 3,000 head during five months of summer ranging, not seeing his owner or camp supplier oftener than once in two weeks, and sometimes not once during the five months of May, June, July, August, and September. Every 40 acres, added to present alfalfa production, means an additional family home in the range portion of the state, and in some districts three or four, where, by fruit growing, 10 acres of irrigated ground will support a family, and an addition of 10 acres feed a family cow and a choice lot of 50 first-class Merino breeding sheep as means of sustaining range flocks up to the highest standard.
This last prediction may seem to some readers a chimera of the brain, but the writer has his own practice in mind in keeping a flock of first-class Merinos within his home lot of less than 20 acres, 17 acres of which was in orchards, and he had no such resource for securing the best kind of feeding hay, as alfalfa land under irrigation gives. It is, I believe, the history of successful breeding of the first quality of domestic stock in any given line, that the highest results are attained under one directing mind. In 1892 the writer, in the service of the Bureau of Animal Industry, visited the breeding farm of Mr. Frank Bullard of Wheatland, Cal. He was and had been for some years confessedly in the lead of breeders of Merinos of Vermont type in California. His feed barn was in a 10-acre lot, containing at the time of my visit over 60 head of young rams, the most inferior looking one in the lot being a high-priced yearling recently received from Vermont. The alfalfa fed Pacific Coast bred sheep, averaged larger and had better fleeces than their Vermont progenitors, because the plains of California are under a better growing climate than that of Vermont, though that was not perfect, because of excessive heat at times during summer. This same season I had seen the choice ram flock of the Baldwin Sheep and Land Company, who were at the time drawing their means of improvement from Mr. Bullard; and again their stock appeared and I think were an improvement on his. Alfalfa was the basis feed in each case, but the Oregon bred sheep had the ideal sheep pastures on the slopes of the Blue Mountains to run on, and not a day in the year that was not stimulative to growth of flesh and wool fibre.
I may appear to be writing inconsistently in claiming superiority for this company, but the foundation was laid by the individual, Doctor Baldwin, in 1873. In March, 1882, he had not yet succeeded with alfalfa. His health was failing, but he had two strong assistants in the Van Houten Bros., who, knowing what was lacking, relieved the failing doctor by purchase and reorganized the business by taking in associates with capital and energy. J. P. Van Houten is still the one to select the fundamental elements of success. President C. M. Cartwright is a cautious and shrewd judge of men and things, and it seems he is ready to spend freely to secure the best whereever it may be found, in which policy he is ably supported by J. G. Edwards. Whether in France or Germany, among the breeders of Rambouillets in Ohio, among the leading American Delaine Merino breeders, or at the Oregon State Fair, where their excellent flock manager, E. H. Dean, had instruction to purchase any sheep, showing points excelling what he had in his care. This was the order of J. G. Edwards, treasurer, and shows enterprise worthy of his company.
I have thus briefly touched the historical origin of what I am not alone in deeming the greatest Merino breeding station in the world at present. Fourteen thousand selected pure Merino ewes, giving opportunity to place annually to the service of flock owners 5,000 head of choice breeding sheep, and on the wool market 500,000 pounds of fine wool. The basic security for doing this is the annual harvest of 2,500 tons of alfalfa hay in addition to 30,000 acres of carefully selected land for pasture and hay production.
The representative of the American Sheep Breeders and Wool Growers, himself a Merino breeder in Ohio, was so impressed by the superior size of these Eastern Oregon bred sheep that he sent one back to Ohio as a specimen.
In addition to this leading Merino breeding plant there are at least four others in Eastern Oregon which would be deemed large in any other state or country. Allan & LaFollett of Prineville have an annual output of rams for the trade of 1,000 to 1,200. As many are now marketed from Antelope. From Heppner E. F. Day has 1,000 to 1,200, and A. Lindsay from 500 to 600 head. Charles Cunningham of Pendleton, who began breeding thoroughbred Merino in 1871, two years in advance of Doctor Baldwin, has, in addition to several large bands of stock sheep, over 8,000 thoroughbred ewes, and his sales of rams has for years past been upwards of 3,000 annually, a record he will surpass the present season. His stock is mainly of the Rambouillet and Delaine types of Merino. This makes Mr. Cunningham the largest individual breeder and a pioneer in the business in Eastern Oregon, and swells the total output to the trade to more than 12,000, which, by the aid of middlemen, who make a business of it, disseminates this means of improvement from the east slopes of the Cascades to Central Kansas and from the Mexican line to that of Canada and beyond. The retail value of these 12,000 sheep ranges from five to twenty times the value of mutton and stock sheep.
On the uplands of the Willamette Valley high grade Merinos are the very best gleaners and assistance in grain farming; but the climate of Western Oregon will permit under lowland Scotch methods of farming, the Down breeds of Middle Wools or the Lincolns, Cotswold or Leicesters of quality equal to the same breeds in Great Britain, and the general tendency is now towards those breeds. At the State Fair, closing as this is written, there were 157 Middle Wools, 113 Long Wools, and 70 head of Merinos, and 47 Angora goats entered for prizes. Ten exhibitors of English breeds and those of Merinos. The Merinos and the Angoras are the frontier settler's profitable aid, and British breeds, with rape, clover and vetches are the intense farmer's profits, or means to that end.
As stated in the first part of this paper, the writer in 1860 became half owner of nine pure merino ewes, six of which were pure Macarthur Australians. The first ewe lamb sold was to his neighbor, T. L. Davidson. In 1862 Mr. Davidson purchased two more ewe lambs and one from Donald McLeod of Vermont type. The three purchased from me were of the first cross of the Vermont type of Spanish Merino with the Australian. Mr. Davidson bred in the same direction, with the result that his flock classed as pure Spanish with finer wool than was then aimed for by Vermont breeders. He sent samples to the Centennial of 1876 and was awarded a first-class medal on the following report of the judges: "Some excellent samples of fine Merino wool from the State of Oregon, closely resembling Australian wools; giving evidence that the state can produce very valuable wool."
This is upon the quality of Merino wool grown in Western Oregon, not more than 180 feet above sea level, eighteen years after the introduction into the Willamette Valley of 20 head of Macarthur's Australian Merinos. This may be a fitting point to record the opinion of two acknowledged experts, not citizens of Oregon, yet serving as judges at Oregon's State Fair, just closed. N. H. Gentry, a prominent cattle breeder of Sedalia, Mo., visited the fair and served as judge of beef cattle and swine. After praising the exhibits of both classes he said:—
I also saw some fine displays of sheep, and, judging by the remarkably healthy condition of the sheep I should say this must be a good country for sheep. The thrifty appearance of the wool and the good gloss it bore particularly attracted my attention.
Mr. Gentry is, besides being prominent as a stock breeder, a member of the Louisiana Purchase Exhibition Commission, and it is hoped he will revisit Oregon in 1905.
Prof. W. L. Carlyle, of the Chair of Animal Industry at the University of Wisconsin, was judge of dairy cattle, draft horses and sheep at the last Oregon State Fair. In answer to questions of a reporter for the Oregonian, he said:—
The sheep exhibit was a complete surprise to me in its high quality. I think that at none of the eastern state fairs will as good an exhibit of Cotswold sheep be found. The growth of wool was particularly fine, and demonstrated that this country, in so far as wool production is concerned, can not be excelled in the United States. Not a single poor sheep* was shown, though there were four large exhibits. The Shropshire breed was well represented, but the animals were not of such uniformly high character as the Cotswolds. The development of the lambs in this class was noteworthy, as it was in all others. This seems to indicate that Oregon should prove a very formidable rival of England in the future, and I can see no reason why eastern breeders should not get their exhibit stock from the Pacific Coast, instead of going to England for it.
With the long, hard winters which we have to contend with in the middle west, it is very difficult to grow lambs and young sheep to the greatest perfection in the first year, and for this reason exhibitors import their show stock from England. So soon as Oregon breeders take hold of the matter as they should, I believe they can challenge the world in the production of high-class sheep.
I do not know of a better flock of Dorset sheep on the continent than the flock of Mr. Scott of Menomone, and I think the best Shropshire lamb I have seen in years was exhibited by Mr. C. E. Ladd. I am taking some samples of wool from this flock to Wisconsin University for exhibition purposes in the classroom, as I have never found its equal in length of staple and strength of fiber.
This is in line with the prediction of Mr. Peale, the naturalist, who, as a member of Wilkes' Expedition, was in Oregon in 1842, and said:—
Oregon will be a fine sheep country, as for the health of sheep upland pastures are necessary, and your even, moderate climate, permitting the fur-bearing animals to carry their fine furs throughout the year, will do the same for the wool of sheep.
It also accords with results attained by leading breeders in both Western and Eastern Oregon. Dr. James Withycombe, now at the head of the Oregon Experiment Station, of English birth, has been a breeder of both Cots wold and Merino sheep, and believes with Professor Carlyle that Western Oregon can produce Cotswolds superior to England.
THE INFLUENCE OF SHEEP HUSBANDRY ON HUMAN CHARACTER.
There is another and still more important product of sheep husbandry than that breeding the best sheep. Independent manhood is doing much and enduring much as a pioneer of law order and thereby advancing the beginnings of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, over the waste places of our yet young state. I have indicated how the first woolen mill was started on the Pacific side by the pioneer wool-growing farmers and may fittingly close this paper by summarizing the transactions of the last meeting of the Oregon Wool Growers' Association.
It met at Pendleton, Oregon, on the sixteenth of September, was welcomed by the mayor of the city, responded to by Hon. J. N. Williamson in behalf of the association. It passed a series of resolutions in behalf of farmers, ranchmen, cattlemen, and a number of other industries, particularly in the eastern part of the state, to the effect that the wool growers are receiving a benefit from the funds appropriated by the state for the purpose of paying a bounty on the destruction of coyotes and other predaceous animals far in excess of the amount paid out; declares a great reduction of these destructive animals under the law passed by the last legislature, and thanks that body therefor, predicting a rapid decrease in the expense to the state from now on if the law be continued, for which it prays, pledging its efforts to secure a similar law in adjoining states. It speaks for legislative appropriation of public money in assistance of the fair to be held in commemoration of the first exploration of the Pacific Northwest and pledges its assistance.[5]
It indorses the proposed national forest reserve on the Blue Mountains as having an undoubted tendency towards settling the untoward differences that now exist between those owning cattle on the one hand and sheep on the other, known as "the cattle and sheep war.' It pledges its co-operation with the plans of the government in making rules for grazing such portions of forest reserves as can be grazed not only without injury, but as experience was proving while this body was in session, and voting from its limited funds, contribution in aid of sufferers by the death and destruction caused west of the Cascade range, mainly by brush fires of home builders. It sends its condolence and sympathy to these sufferers, condemns the manufacture of and sale of shoddy cloth for that of sound wool, and speaks for a railroad rate of twenty-five miles per hour from Oregon shipping points to the great markets of Chicago, Omaha, and Kansas City.[6] Can the cattle interest show any such spirit?
Notes[edit]
- ↑ The Rev. M. Fackler, an Episcopalian minister, as a means of making himself useful, drove the combined flocks of 1817 most of the way. Mrs, Werner Breyman, now of Salem, drove the Watt flock in 1848.
- ↑ The writer has verified copies of the certificates given by the Macarthur Bros, to Consul Williams, which, together with the history of the attainment of their progenitors, constitutes the only pedigree known to be extant tracing to a particular Spanish flock.
- ↑ There is probably no fiercer tirade against range sheep husbandry in the English language than that of the committee of the National Academy of Science, asked for by Hon. Hoke Smith at the suggestion of the executive committee of the American Forestry Association, in order to secure the counsel of this learned body as to an administrative policy over the forest covered portion of the public domain as secretary of the interior. Sheep were "hoofed locusts, leaving desolation and ruin on the grass lands and destroying the forests," driven by "nomads and marauders." The epithets used are the worn coin of the half insane but charming Carlylian writer on mountains and forests, John Muir. Much bitterness, doubtless, was caused by sheep trailers as they passed through; sometimes it was in resentment for extortion for water and feed purchased. The laws of Spain under the rule of her grandee and clergy, who were the chief owners of the fine wooled flocks, provided by law wide roads for their migration; but this body of highly respected men, who it may be said are our only grandees, made no suggestions for the benefit of this important industrial interest. In many localities of our State the annual movement of sheep to and from the mountain ranges causes serious injury to the wheat farmer and homestead settler. This is at present tending to induce our best flock owners to purchase their summer ranges as near as possible to their winter homes, and is bringing into the public service as lawmakers practical men like Hons. J. N. Williamson and Thomas H. Tongue, Douglas Belts, and others.
- ↑ They were also among the first to breed thoroughbred Merinos as range sheep for improvement of their own and neighbors' flocks, taking a colony of the writer's flock on shares about the date of Doctor Baldwin's locating at Hay Creek. This did not interfere with my taking my surplus bred in the Willamette Valley to districts further east and south. For twenty-five years after buyers ceased coming to me at Salem I did a moderate but very interesting business as sheep merchant on Lower John Day and its tributaries, Rock Creek and Thirty-Mile, and from Heppner to Prinesville, near which I also had a colony in the hands of Hon. J. N. Williamson, who, however, from the time he was as well known in Crook County as I knew him as a youth at Salem, has been called to public duties by his fellow-citizens in too many ways to make a successful sheep breeder. To me the business was an instructive pleasure.
- ↑ This association at its annual meeting in 1901 declared its purpose to bring assassins of sheep on the range, whether by poison or the rifle, to legal punishment, and as members have more than ordinary means of indentifying a miscreant of this kind, it will be a long time before some of them are entirely safe.
- ↑ This body had at this meeting 119 members in good standing, owners of 325,000 sheep, not quite one tenth of the sheep of the state, but ably representing its entire interests in its particular field. The interest, however, from the writer's point of view is in a transition state away from the range system and towards a settled permanency on all lands in Eastern Oregon not reachable by irrigation.