SUEVEYS OF FOREST EESEEVES. 121 



Following the general progress of agricultural settlement, sheep rais- 

 ing in Oregon was carried on first in the Willamette Valley, in the west- 

 ern portion of the State; later in the Grand Eonde, in northeastern 

 Oregon, and then, crowded out of these fertile places by the more prof- 

 itable occupations of agriculture proper, the sheep owners moved their 

 flocks to more and more remote parts of the State, especially to the 

 great sage plains in its eastern portion, where tlie ordinary processes 

 of agriculture are confined to small areas, chiefly irrigated land, and 

 the country is for the most part so dry as to be adapted only for grazing. 



The distinction between range sheep and farm sheep must be clearly 

 understood. In a thickly settled agricultural region, in which all or 

 nearly all the land is cut up into farms, or ranches, as they are called in 

 the western United States, it is a common pi'actice to keep on each 

 ranch a small number of sheep, from a few individuals to a few hundred. 

 These are inclosed in fenced pastures, and do not therefore require a 

 herder. Range sheep, on the other hand, are pastured, or grazed, on 

 the great areas of unfenced public or Government land, popularly known 

 as the open range, the outside range, or simply. the range. Because 

 this land is not fenced, and because unprotected sheep would be liable 

 to destruction by wild animals, especially coyotes, or prairie wolves, 

 these range sheep are accompanied and cared for by a man who is called 

 a sheep herder, or simply a herder. As a matter of economy each 

 herder is intrusted with as many sheep as he can jiroperly manage, 

 commonly two or three thousand. Such an aggregation of sheep is 

 called a band. The terms flock and shepherd are seldom heard in the 

 range sheep region of Oregon. 



Twenty years ago the sheep that were owned on the treeless plains of 

 eastern Oregon, at points remote from the forested mountains, were 

 pastured in fall, winter, and spring, just as they now are, upon the open 

 range, but during the hot and dry summer months, when on the summits 

 of the plateaus the grass tops were dead, water for the sheep was want- 

 ing, and the heat was oi)pressive, it became imperative that the sheep 

 be kept in the bottoms of the deep, rock-walled canyons which form the 

 drainage channels of the region. Here were found water, fresh grass, 

 and shade, which carried the sheep through the summer in good condi- 

 tion. But as sheep raising, being a profitable industry, became more 

 popular it was found that these canyons, on account of their limited area, 

 could furnish summer range for only a portion of the sheep that could 

 readily find iiasturage on the winter range. In order therefore to utilize 

 more of the winter range it was necessary to increase the summer range, 

 and this it was found possible to do by driving the sheep in late spring 

 or early summer to some of the cool, well-watered, grassy, timber-covered 

 mountains that adjoin the plains. By this modification of the yearly 

 routine the possibilities of sheep raising of the plains were enormously 

 increased. For example, that portion of the plains which extends from 

 Antelope to Bakeoven, in Wasco County, which, under the old system, 

 could carry only 6,000 sheep, now carries 25,000 sheep. 



SUMMEK SHEEP GRAZING IN THE MOUNTAINS. 



Outside an unimportant amount of grazing carried on in the vicinity 

 of The Dalles as much as thirty years ago, the mountains first resorted 

 to for summer range were the Blue Mountains, which are situated in the 

 northeastern portion of the State and east of the principal sheep-graz- 

 ing area of the plains. First, beginning about twenty-five years ago, 

 only the lower slopes of the mountains were used, but little by little 



