SHEEP-GRAZING L\ THE CASCADE FOREST 

 RESERVE OF OREGON. 



By Fredkrick V. Coville. 



[A report made to the Sccivtary of Agriculture, and on Januarj- 21, 1898, transmitted by bim to the 



Secretary of the Interior.] 



INTRODUCTION. 



For the past few years a bitter controversy has been waged in Ore- 

 gon on the question of grazing sheep in the Cascade Range Forest 

 Reserve. Eeoeut legislation by Congress has made it necessary to • 

 devise a series of regulations regarding this industry, and in the face 

 of a great deal of diametrically conflicting testimony regarding the 

 eflect of sheep-grazing, the Interior Department felt the need of a dis- 

 interested investigation of the facts before formulating any detailed set 

 of rules. The aid of the Department of Agriculture was solicited, and 

 the result of our investigation is here presented. A preliminary report 

 was transmitted to the Secretary of the Interior on November 22, 1897. 



Hon. Binger Hermann, Commissioner of the General Land Office, 

 furnished me with valuable letters of introduction to several prominent 

 citizens of Oregon who were familiar with the sheep-^'razing (fiiestion. 



Mr. John Minto, of Salem, Oreg., gave me a general letter of intro- 

 duction to the sheepmen of eastern Oregon, which enabled me to 

 secure a large amount of iuforniation through channels that ordinarily 

 would have been closed to a Government officer investigating this sub- 

 ject. Among the many others to whose courtesy I am indebted, I must 

 mention particularly Mr. Thomas Cooper and Mr. E. F. Benson, of the 

 western laud office of the Northern Pacific Kailroad, at Tacoma, Wash., 

 who had recently been conducting an investigation of sheep grazing on 

 the railroad lands. 



From Portland and Salem I went by rail and by stage to Klamath 

 Falls, in the southern part of the State, and there procured a pack 

 outfit. The party, consistinj; of myself, Mr. E. I. Applegate, acting as 

 assistant, and a camp hand, with three saddle horses and five pack 

 horses, entered the southern end of the reserve on July 23. From this 

 time until September 6, when we reached The Dalles on the Columbia 

 I'iver at the northern end of the reserve, we were engaged in a thor- 

 ough examination of the forests, including not only those portions in 

 which sheep now graze, but other typical portions in which sheep have 

 never grazed. We traversed, besides the well-known parts of the Cas- 

 cades, some of the most remote and inaccessible portions, traveling 

 largely without trails. We interviewed sheep owners, packers, and 

 herders, cattle owners, and aU classes of people, both those who favored 

 and those who were opposed to the permitting of sheep grazing within 

 the reserve. We followed the bands of shtep as they were grazing, 



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