[8] 



would take lessons from these Snake river people, they would simply have 

 a paradise.'' 



In a more recent letter Mr. Dosch tells me of one firm near Ontario 

 who had 2,000 tons of alfalfa hay, who had just given an order for 2,000 

 calves to be purchased in the Willamette valley at $8.25 per head. Any 

 reasonable business man knows that this transmountain trade in cattle and 

 sheep is one of advantage to breeder, middleman and feed-seller; and 

 so far as the sheep are concerned they are not "hoofed locusts" but the 

 golden hoofed bearers of the golden fleece, eating a greater variety of the 

 bitter weeds of the hot plain, and by their owners carrying gold to the 

 owners of hay in the Snake river and other canyons, when their welfare 

 demands such purchase. They do not eat coniferous trees at any stage of 

 growth, and they lessen the danger of forest flres where they feed. This is 

 the statement of unprejudiced men, from central California, to northern 

 British Columbia on the Pacific coast. In the consular reports from Aus- 

 tralia, which tell of sheep being destroyed in flres of dry grass and timber 

 combined, there is not a single charge made against sheep keepers as incen- 

 diaries. 



Among those who have been here this past summer to estimate the 

 reasons for the people" of Oregon desiring the reduction of the Cascade 

 forest reserve, was Mr. B. E. Fernow, to whom allusions have been made. 

 If his remarks relative to the Cascade reserve were correctly reported in the 

 Oregonian of September 9th, it ought not to be hard to convince him the 

 people of Oregon are right in their desire for its reduction. They, like the 

 people of many other states, are very willing to have some of the most in- 

 teresting mountains included in reserve parks. He ascended the bases of 

 Mt. Hood and Mt. Jefferson and made an estimate of the reserves as a 

 timber resource. To reach the latter mountain he passed through a commu- 

 nity of a larger number of citizens than constitutes the American Forestry 

 Association, whose families are supported by lumbering interests inside the 

 reservation. He is reporled as saying: "There is not much, although 

 some, good marketable material on the Cascade and Bull Run reserves, but 

 the larger part of the great reserve, I am inclined to think, comprises 

 Alpine forest of hemlock and flrs, which does not furnish material at pres- 

 ent marketable, or else is burnt up. Although the reserved area appears 

 large, its useful contents are but scanty. You may safely halve the area as 

 far as serviceable timber is concerned." This is a remarkably good estimate 

 of the eastern half of it, but Mr. F. was deceived as to the west half by 

 seeing only the high ridges, whereon the timber is always thin and inferior 

 from natural causes — foremost of which is lack of moisture at its roots; next 

 the injurious influence of the wind. 



Mr. F. proceeds: "I have not heard a single good reason against the 

 reserve. The reasons usually can be sifted down to some small speculative 



