45 
county. The most practicable and direct remedy for this appears to lie 
not in excluding sheep from the reserve, but in levying on the transient 
sheep owners a county toll tax offsetting the amount of damage sus- 
tained by the county. This has been done in Inyo County, Cal., 
and doubtless elsewhere. The legislative functions of the counties of 
Oregon are extremely limited constitutionally, but the State could 
undoubtedly make the necessary enactment to remedy both this and 
the preceding difficulties. 
Reference 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 repu- 
diated this park idea of the forest reserves as a whole, but has made it 
possible to provide 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 commercial welfare of the State of Oregon. Of 
the wool clip (that is, the wool product) of i897 there had been sold 
up to September 1 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, 
‘itis amatter of common belief, frequently expressed, thatthemoney that 
comes into the hands of woolgrowersis 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 avery 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 Crook 
County, according to the census of 1895, was only 3,212, and that 
therefore the wool clip alone brings into the county an average of 
about $92.62 per capita each year, the importance of the wool-growing 
business as a supporter of local prosperity is at once evident. Asa 
specific illustration of the significance of these figures, the following 
citations are presented from the Massachusetts State census and statis- 
tics of manufactures for 1895: population of Massachusetts, 2,500,183; 
manufactures of cotton goods, $86,689,082; of boots and _ shoes, 
$76,882,713; food preparations, $43,984,375; machines and machinery, 
$23,785,409. The total product of these manufacturing industries, the 
largest in the State of Massachusetts, is $231,341,579, an average of 
$92.53 per capita. In brief, the wool clip alone in Crook County is of 
