SHEEP-FARMING IN THE WEST. 101 



timber. Chugwater and its tributaries — Richard 

 Creek, Wolf Creek, Spring Creek, and Willow Creek 

 — are each over 200 miles long, and afford good graz- 

 ing. Sabille Creek has also good bottoms, and is 40 

 # miles long. The Big Laramie is over 200 miles in 

 length, and has bottoms 5 miles wide. It contains at 

 least 6,400,000 acres of rich grass-lands, on which as 

 many sheep could be grazed, and they would annually 

 produce 24,000,000 pounds of wool, worth $9,600,000. 

 In this one valley of the West could be grazed all the 

 sheep now in the great State of Ohio. As many as 

 500,000 sheep could be raised each year, and these for 

 mutton alone would be worth $2,500,000. The land 

 on the Laramie Plains is high and dry, and the air 

 pure. There is plenty of timber, and, taken all together, 

 this is a perfect sheep paradise. 



All these pasturages are of easy access to the Union 

 Pacific Railroad, and many of them near cities and 

 large towns. The whole country west from Grand 

 Island to Green River, a distance of over five hundred 

 miles, is one vast pasture-field. The Sweetwater Val- 

 ley, many hundreds of miles long, and from four to ten 

 miles wide, affords rich grass, and would graze 1,000,- 

 000 sheep and cattle. I have been all over the Wind 

 River country, and it is an enormous belt of agricul- 

 tural and pastoral lands. The valley will grow wheat, 

 rye, oats, Indian corn, and furnish sites for beautiful 

 homes, while on the hills which 'roll away for hundreds 

 of miles millions of sheep and cattle can graze without 

 other food or shelter than that furnished by nature. 

 Beyond the Wind River is the Big Horn range, of which 



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