Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/253

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Sheep Husbandry.
243

improvement from the east slopes of the Cascades to Central Kansas and from the Mexican line to that of Canada and beyond. The retail value of these 12,000 sheep ranges from five to twenty times the value of mutton and stock sheep.

On the uplands of the Willamette Valley high grade Merinos are the very best gleaners and assistance in grain farming; but the climate of Western Oregon will permit under lowland Scotch methods of farming, the Down breeds of Middle Wools or the Lincolns, Cotswold or Leicesters of quality equal to the same breeds in Great Britain, and the general tendency is now towards those breeds. At the State Fair, closing as this is written, there were 157 Middle Wools, 113 Long Wools, and 70 head of Merinos, and 47 Angora goats entered for prizes. Ten exhibitors of English breeds and those of Merinos. The Merinos and the Angoras are the frontier settler's profitable aid, and British breeds, with rape, clover and vetches are the intense farmer's profits, or means to that end.

As stated in the first part of this paper, the writer in 1860 became half owner of nine pure merino ewes, six of which were pure Macarthur Australians. The first ewe lamb sold was to his neighbor, T. L. Davidson. In 1862 Mr. Davidson purchased two more ewe lambs and one from Donald McLeod of Vermont type. The three purchased from me were of the first cross of the Vermont type of Spanish Merino with the Australian. Mr. Davidson bred in the same direction, with the result that his flock classed as pure Spanish with finer wool than was then aimed for by Vermont breeders. He sent samples to the Centennial of 1876 and was awarded a first-class medal on the following report of the judges: "Some excellent samples of fine Merino wool from the State of