128 



SURVEYS OF FOREST RESERVES. 



Classified by the districts (to be described hereafter) into which the 

 reserve may be divided for rauge purposes, the statistics are as follows : 



Kange district. 



Number Number 

 of bands, of sheep. 



Mount Hood 



Three . ieters 



Upper Deschutes 



86,400 

 79, 330 

 22, 630 



The total number of owners ranging sheep in the Cascades the past 

 season was 60, or, more strictly speaking, there were 50 individual 

 owners, 2 lessees, and 8 pairs of partners. It is possible that a few of 

 those recorded as owners may in reality be lessees. 



Of these 60 owners, 41 owned single bands, containing 1,000 to 3,500 

 sheep; 15 owned two bands each, containing 3,400 to 5,000 sheep; 3 

 owned three bands each, containing 5,000 to 7,980 sheep; and 1 owned 

 six bands, containing 13,450 sheep. 



The sheep ranges of the reserve lie in seven counties, as follows: 



It will be observed that the sheep ranged in the Cascade Reserve are 

 chiefly in the hands of small owners; that these owners live in the 

 counties of Wasco, Crook, and Sherman, all on the east side of the 

 Cascade Mountains; and that of the seven counties in which the sheep 

 are grazed, three — Wasco, Crook, and Klamath — are on the east side of 

 the Cascade crest, while four — Clackamas, Linn, Lane, and Douglas — 

 are on the west slope. 



A small percentage of the sheep grazed in the reserve — perhaps 

 15,000 to 20,000 — are known as "Washington sheep." These are not, 

 as might be supposed, sheep owned in the State of Washington, but 

 sheep owned in the State of Oregon, which in earlier years were taken 

 across the Columbia Eiver into the Cascade Mountains of Washington 

 for the summer pasturage. The Washington State legislature passed 

 an alleged quarantine law stipulating a sixty-day quarantine period for 

 all sheep entering the State. This was an efi'ectual barrier against tha 

 sheep from Oregon, and they were compelled to find summer grazing 

 south of the Columbia. Many of them went into the Cascade Reserve, 

 and Ihus for the past two summers have swelled the customary total. 



CIIARACrER OF GRAZING LANDS. 



The acreage per sheep required for grazing throughout the summer 

 is exceedingly variable, depending on the kind and character of the 

 vegetation. In a rich meadow, not too.wet, half an acre for each sheep 

 maybe sufficient; in sterile lodge-pole pine forests 10 acres maybe 

 required. 



To a herder the plants on which sheep graze are ot three classes — 

 grass, weeds, and browse. The name grass is applied not only to true 

 grasses, but ft) all plants resembling grass in appearance, especially 



