402 
THE SAGE PLAINS OF OREGON 
those regions in which money is made out of only one product, in 
this case, forage. The forage crop is not immediately exchanged 
for money, but is used to fatten cattle for beef, to raise horses 
for farm and other purposes, and to grow sheep for wool. At 
present the low price of wool has practically put an end to sheep 
grazing. The low price of horses, as draft animals, has resulted 
in the inability of the ranchers to market their stock, horses 
fresh from the range being now worth in some parts of Oregon 
no more than five dollars per head. The actual i)roducts of the 
region, therefore, are essential!}’’ limited to one, namely, beef 
cattle, and the price of these is so low that the income is barely 
sufficient to pay the expenses of managing the ranch. 
One practical modification of the ])resent system is clearly 
apparent to the traveler. Ranchers have been accustomed under 
the high prices of former years to neglect the ordinary proce.sses 
of farming and to purchase their entire food sui)[>ly from the 
outside, paying not merely the first cost of the food in eastern 
markets, but the cost of railroad transportation and of a long 
wagon haul besides. The ranchers of the plains have assumed 
rather than i)roved by exjierience that the country is incapa- 
ble of producing the ordinary farm crops, such as are necessary 
for family use. There is no question that a }u-oi)er use for gardens 
and field cro[)S of some of the water which now either goes to 
waste or is turned upon grazing lands would be a most im])ortant 
step toward l)ettering the i)resent agricultural conditions. This 
lesson, indeed, is now being learned practically from force of 
necessity, and in many places where it has been assumed from 
the occasional early or late frosts that certain crops could not be 
grown it is now found that with j)roper foresight and care ex- 
cellent crops are ])roduced. 
Another lesson to be drawn from the fact that the native races 
obtained an abundant subsistence from these same plains in 
which a civilized race now finds it ‘hard to subsist is that it is 
impossible to carry on Avith success in an arid region an agri- 
culture developed in a humid region, unless important modifica- 
tions are introduced. This lesson has already been learned in 
some other parts of the country, as, for example, in western Kan- 
sas, in Indian territory, and in northern Texas, Avhere after years 
of largely unsuccessful trials it was found impossible to depend 
u})on the typical American stock feed, Indian corn, but it was 
found possible to grow a cereal of the old Avorld, noAV commonly 
