140 John Minto. on to recite I told the assembled people that I could sing the lines better than read them, and did, much to their apparent pleasure. Is it all vanity makes me believe that giving pleas- ure in that way to two thousand people, was work well done? From this time on I began to communicate such experiences and results in the care of livestock as I thought would benefit others to know, through the press, and found myself already somewhat of an authority on breeds of sheep as well as fruit culture. CHAPTER IV. THE QUESTION OF SUFFICIENT TIMBER. This question not only came to us, starting on 640 acres of beautiful-lying land, well watered by more than a dozen living springs, and two miles of running water running from west to east across it, but with only about five acres of timber of convenient size for building and fencing. At that time, standing at the Oregon Institute at Salem and looking west at the Polk County hills, the remark was very commonly made that there was too little timber in the Willamette Valley. On the day of a called meeting at the store of the venerable Thomas Cox (who had hauled his goods across the plains from Illinois) to receive subscriptions or contributions in support of the war against the Cayuses, November, 1847, V. K. Pringle and Father Cox got into a warm discussion on the prospective timber supply, the former claiming a certain scarcity in the near future. Mr. Cox said, "No." There was plenty to start with, and with the pasturing of the grass while green, grass fires would cease and timber would come up in plenty ; and that was precisely what was taking place at that very time, though unnoted yet, on more than a township of land in which Mr. Pringle settled. It was March, 1850, before I found there was no need for me to gather fir cones to scatter for timber. On a real spring Sunday I went with my wife and child up on the beaver- shaped hill which divides the two streams I have mentioned.
