990 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



The following illustrates a form of organized capital employed in 

 slieep husbandry which is unpopular, and the fear of which is the only 

 objection made to private ownership of land. The case is given to show 

 that the present system is no hindrance to this kind of associations and 

 monopolizing tendencies. 



The Bauldwin Land and Stock Company is located in Crook County, 

 Oregon. Two of its chief stockholders are bankers, and residents of 

 Portland, Oregon. It has attained the ownership, by purchase from 

 retiring cattlemen, of some of the choicest locations in the county for 

 the production of forage and control of large bodies of public land; 

 some of these places are 30 miles apart. At the central station of Hay 

 Creek is the superintendent's residence and oflBce. A post-office and 

 schoolhouse, a blacksmith's shop and general store are maintained. 

 The stock consists of 35,000 sheep and the additional animals necessary 

 for such a plant. Earn breeding and wool and mutton production con- 

 stitute the business, and items marketed and ready for market this 

 season are between 300,000 and 400,000 pounds of wool, 10,000 mutton 

 sheep, and 1,500 rams. Thirty men are employed , very few of whom are 

 married (the preference being for single men). The business is well 

 managed, on a liberal scale as to wages and food, but the method is 

 not popular with the families resident in the county. 



A much more popular form of a combined breeding and wool-growing 

 plant is that of the Hon. George Chandler, of Baker City, Baker County. 

 In answer to a letter he reports that he keeps 1,500 thoroughbred 

 Merinos under the herding system; reports 80 per cent of lamb increase, 

 and an average fleece yield of 14 pounds, for which he is offered 12^ 

 cents per pound. He prefers wild-grass hay to alfalfa. His flock is 

 one of the local sources of supply of pure-bred rams (of which there are 

 many in eastern Oregon), the output of which are sold for about ' an 

 average of $15 per head." On certain lowlands of a swampy character 

 when wet the best grasses for hay are native wild grasses. On sandy 

 alluvions on the margins of streams, or on irrigable plains, alfalfa, 

 wheat, rye, and on filled-up lake beds and in narrow valleys near the 

 summit of mountains, wild grasses again make the best hay. Eye as a 

 cultivated plant is surest for high, dry land, and is most used in frosty 

 localities. In western Oregon the flock-owner has a great variety of 

 hay plants and other feeds to choose from, as all crops common to the 

 temperate zone will grow and do well. Oats hay cut green is a very 

 generally preferred special feed for sheep in the winter, where any 

 special provision is made. 



Since the partial arrest of wool-growing in 1883, there has been a dis- 

 position to economize in the matter of outlay for improved rams, and 

 many flock-owners prefer a good, strong grade of the third and fourth 

 cross of the Merino to a pure blood. So that breeding for the best style 

 of Merinos has not met with great encouragement for the past eight 

 years in Oregon. The oldest established flocks for ram breeding at 



