SURVEYS OF FOREST RESERVES. 151 



difficulties betweeu cattlemen and sheepmen regarding winter ranges 

 in the plains, they are agreed in desiring the summer-range privilege 

 for sheep in the mountains, the sheepmen, of course, from its distinct 

 addition to their grazing opportunities, the cattlemen because the tem- 

 Ijorary removal of sheep from the plains leaves a larger amount of 

 summer forage there for their own stock, particularly in the canyons 

 and moist bottom lands. 



OTHER DIBTICULTIES. 



According to the statistics given earlier in the report, 101,960 sheep 

 were grazed last year in the Three Sisters and the Upper Deschutes 

 range districts. It appears from examination of the original data that 

 of these sheep only 8,660 were owned in Orook County, all the others 

 being owned in the counties of Wasco and Sherman. JTow, as the only 

 routes to the Three Sisters and the Upper Deschutes districts are 

 through Orook County, it follows that 93,300 sheep not owned in Crook 

 County and paying no taxes there were driven across that county, eat- 

 ing up a large amount of forage that otherwise would have been avail- 

 able for the stock raisers of the county and causing damage to the 

 roads, which must be repaired at the expense of the taxpayers of the 

 county. The most practicable and direct remedy for this, it appears 

 to me, lies not in excluding sheep from the reserve, but in levying on 

 the transient sheep owners a county toll tax, offsetting the amount of 

 damage sustained by the county. This has been done in Inyo County, 

 Cal., and doubtless elsewhere. The legislative functions of the coun- 

 ties of Oregon are extremely limited constitutionally, but the State 

 could undoubtedly make the necessary enactment to remedy both this 

 and the preceding difficulties. 



Eeference has already been made to a general opposition to sheep 

 grazing in the reserve on the part of those who look upon the reserve 

 as a park, to be withheld from the general use of the public, instead of 

 a reservation of natural resources to be maintained in a state of the 

 highest continued production. Congress by its legislation has repudi- 

 ated this park idea of the forest reserves as a whole, but has made it 

 possible to pi'ovide for the maintenance as parks of such portions as 

 are admittedly suitable for this purpose and are demanded as such by 

 the local or general public. 



IMPORTANCE OF SHEEP GRAZING TO THE COMMUNITY. 



It is important to consider what would be the effect of exclusion on 

 the trade relations and pommercial welfare of the State of Oregon. 

 Of the wool clip (that is the wool product) of 1897, there had been sold 

 up to September, at The Dalles alone, the principal shipping point 

 for eastern Oregon, about 8,000,000 pounds, at an average of 11 cents 

 per pound, amounting to $880,000. To this must be added the sale of 

 mutton and stock sheep, the statistics of which are not available. Of 

 the three principal products of eastern Oregon — wool, beef, and 

 wheat — it is a matter of common belief, frequently expressed, that the 

 money that comes into the hands of wool growers is the most important 

 as ready cash in the community; that the nature of the business is 

 such as to make it a quick distributor of money, and to add in a very 

 material way to the general prosperity. According to the State census 

 of Oregon for 1895, the wool clip of Crook County, for example, in that 

 year was 1,983,325 pounds. Taking 15 cents as an average price, this 

 amounts to $297,498.75. When it is considered that the population of 



