LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 53
to the memory of Mr. Slacum to add, that from this circum- stance, and others like it, evincing an interest in the welfare of the people, and a desire to aid their efforts in settling the country, no other official agent of the United States who has visited Oregon is held in equally high estimation or grateful remembrance by the early settlers here.
The Hudson's Bay Company own large flocks of sheep, the breed of which they have taken every pai'ns to improve, besides affording them a constant table supply of good mutton. This stock yields a profitable fleece of wool, which goes to England. Many farmers are also rearing this animal, which succeeds admirably. I saw a flock of twenty on the Recreall river, which had been brought the year before from Missouri. Its owner informed me that they had travelled better, and proved on the journey more thrifty, than either horses or oxen, climb- ibg mountains and swimming rivers with unabated sprightli- ness during a journey of two thousand miles. Of this small stock every one had come safely in.
It is scarcely worth while to add that all garden vegetables grow abundantly in Oregon at least all which have been tried ; fresh seed and increased varieties are much wanting, and it is to be lamented that the emigrants seldom bring out ariy- thing of this kind. If each would provide himself with a few varieties, how soon would they be repaid for their trouble. The man who will put some walnuts and hickory nuts in his pocket, and bring them to Oregon, may in that way propagate the growth of timber, for which posterity will be grateful. But few exotic plants or flowers have yet arrived; but the natural flora of this country is said, by those acquainted with the sub- ject, to be very rich and extensive. Speaking of flowers re- minds me that the honey-bee has not yet been naturalized a desideratum which every one seems to notice with surprise where the sweet briar and honeysuckle, the clover and wild- grape blossom, "waste their sweets upon the desert air." An emigrant of 1846 left Missouri with two hives, and conveyed them safely over the mountains ; but was overtaken by winter
