The west shore., January 01, 1881, Page 10, Image 8

THE WEST SHORE.
January, 1881
10
CATTI.K IIREKDINO IN OKKGON.
T. II. MKkkY.
The Williiincttc valley is a vast grain
garden, but it ha been severely taxed
by an incessant crop of wheat. The
good old church-going farmer of thin
section spent their Sundays like (Jod
fearing men before whose minds the
Divine maxim was ever present : " Six
day shall thou hihor uml do idl thou
bant to do, but the seventh in the Sab
bat h of the Lord thy (Jd." Hut they
forgot to accord any Sabbath day to
the glebe beneath their feet. Heine it
i no source of wonder to me that many
once Alio farm in (hit region should
now be suffering from the double evil
of a rickety fence and a Caledonian
mortgage.
Hut went of the Cascrde range in the
great dairying section of the l'acilic
coast, in obedience to what I deem a
manifest destiny. Ami you will see
that whenever the New England ele
ment of population begins to prepon
derate in the Willamette Valley, Ore
gon w ill begin to cxort butter to Cal
ifornia, instead of having to import it
for homo consumption. Men will not
content themselves merely with pro
ducing wheat to export to the United
Kingdom, but will produce anything
and everything that will grow upon a
ranch -let us say farm. I never liked
thai word "ranch," though the 17th
day of next February will see me a
twenty-eight years' resident of the Pa
cific coast, of which seventeen were
sxnt in California. Hut I never liked
the word "ranch." It was always as
ftocialed in my mind with ragged-look,
ing (Millies, cigarettos, pautaloout split
tip the sides, squaw and the natural
children of unnatural fathers.
I prefer the " farm " to the " ranch "
for that reason. It it English to begin
with, and our mother tongue is prefer
able to a corruption of Spanish, With
me the "farm" means a place sur
rounded with high-formed horse, high
bred cattle, high-minded men and
highly virtuous women, It means tidy
wive in neat calico frocks and chubby
faced Imyi in linen blouses, walking oil
to school with mice as clear as the
lark's that are caroling out from the
verdant licdgcrowi their welcome
the spring.
Hence, the want of lite country is a
producing cUt that will save all, by
paying cash for nothing that will grow
upon a farm. I can show you families
who buy their canned tomatoes, beans,
peas and corn, as well as their butter
and lard. A few New England fami
lies I can show you, who make their
own soap for laundry and scrubbing
purposes; who can put up their win
ter bacon and lard, and who have their
canned corn, peas, tomatoes, pears and
plums by the gross. It is the latter
class who enrich it country, and the
f inner that impoverish it.
My own idea used to be that it was
folly to attempt to breed merely for the
dairy alone or for the shambles only.
I thought that the prudent and cautious
breeder should have his milch cows and
his beef steers, also, but my observation
of Oregon and her resources teaches
me that dairy-farming should be the
great object west of the Cascade
Range, while breeders of the vast
bunch-grass plains should aim to breed
for size of carcass, above all other con
siderations. 01 course, I do not urge
men to sell their beef and buy butter,
east of Mount Hood, nor do I advise
the peaceful denizens of Soap creek and
the ever-classic Long Tom, to make
butter and sell it to buy beef from
Ochoeoor Harney. Hut that each of
these sections has decided advantages
over the other, in the especial points I
have cited, no one will deny. Wasco
and Umatilla counties have the most
grass and least water of any two in the
State. Docs that look at all like a dairy
country ?
Again, water is necessary for other
pin jmiscs than merely for stock to drink.
If a man has thirty cows to milk, he
needs a stream of water to let them drink
and he need not do a day's churning
by baud in a year, unless the stream
freezes up. An outlay of twenty dob
lan' worth of lumber and live days' la
bor will rig a water-power which will
not only churn the butter, but also work
the butter milk out of it. And wher
ever a good stream of water can Im
found to work for a man, he is foolish
to work for hinwlf. The Willamette
vail ey has no advantage over the coast
section of Clatsop, Tillamook, Kenton
or Coos in this resect. In fact, the
coast section aliounds in the white sham
rock clover, which is in itself a capital
foundation for a dairy. The old log.
giug camp in the vicinity of Marsh,
field and Gardiner, have noticed as
being particularly rich in this excellent
pasturage.
As to the preferable breed of cattle,
that is a case in which it is hard to de
cide, especially "when doctors disa
gree." Hut my own idea is the Dur
ham, or short horn, exclusively for
Eastern Oregon, while the Western sec
tion of our State can be utilized for the
smaller breeds, such as Ayrshircs, Al
derncys, Jerseys and Devonshires. The
Jerseys and Ayrshircs arc especially
nice to have in hilly locations, such as
the vast limber clad ridges between
Coos Hay and the Umpqua valley, for
they are so active that they will keep
fat on walking not less than fifteen
miles in a day, which would completely
knock a short horn off his legs. And
there certainly can be nothing more
docile and aflectionate than the quaint
little Jersey cows, that give such rich
milk and occupy no more stable room
than a fully grown Newfoundland dog.
The man who has what is called a
" mountain farm," should have none
other, as they are very domestic and
hence arc less liable to stray off and get
devoured by cougars or bears.
Hut had I a farm right at a foothill
slope in the Willamette, my preference
would be the Devons, every time. To
begin with, they have size above the
Ayrshircs and Jerseys and give quite as
much milk, though it is scarcely as
abundant in cream. They are just as
hardy and far more beautiful than either
of the other breeds, while their beef
can not be equalled for quality and
richness. Then look at what work
oxen they make. Henry Williams,
the man who brought old "Belmont"
to this coast, once had a pair of Devon
steers that he used to show at the Cali
fornia fairs, with and without a yoke.
They could walk four miles per liour,
and went through all the "ge" and
" haw " business without compelling
theirdrivcr to speak louderthan his or
dinary tone of conversational voice. I
have been in love with the Devon cat
tle ever since.
Of Aldcrneys, I can say but little,
save that some prefer them to the Jer
seys and Ayrshircs, and we must not
forget the maxim of D guslibus non dis
pulahJum. Of 1 Iolsteins, I never saw
but one, a little brown bull with a yel
low neck ; and never shall I forget my
astonishment when told that he had
just been imported by Steele Bros., the