9 
Following the general progress of agricultural settlement, sheep 
raising in Oregon was earried on first in the Willamette Valley, in the 
western portion of the State, later in the Grand Ronde, in extreme 
northeastern Oregon, and then, crowded out of these fertile places by 
the more profitable occupations of agriculture proper, the sheep owners 
moved their flocks to more and more remote parts of the State, espe- 
cially to the great sage plains in its eastern portion, where the 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 practice to keep on each 
ranch a small number of sheep, from a few individuals to a few hun- 
dred. 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. Asa matter of 
economy, each herder is intrusted with as many sheep as he can prop- 
erly 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 region of Oregon, and in this report, therefore, the term 
‘*and,” in common use there, will be employed. 
Twenty years ago the sheep that were owned on the treeless plains 
of eastern Oregon, at points remote from the forest-covered 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 wanting, and the heat was oppressive, 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 condition. But as sheep raising, proving 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 pasturage 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 
