SPECIAL EDITION OF THE TILLAMOOK HEADLIGHT.
I
EDITION
SPECIAL
OF THE
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T his edition of the T illamook H eadlight is issued under
the auspices of the Port of Tillamook Commission and in the
interest of I illamook County, and in a small way to answer the
numerous inquiries about the resources thereof, coming, as they
have done, from manufacturers, millmen, farmers and others who
are looking for desirable locations where they can carry on profit­
able industries. Tillamook County presents many and varied
attractions for this class of people, and it is with the utmost con­
fidence that the H eadlight can recommend its advantages to their
consideration and investigation. Practically the county is only in
its infancy when its resources are taken into consideration. The
time will come when Tillamook must, of necessity, become a
manufacturing county, for the timber resources are so extensive
that this is the only logical conclusion to draw. Especially can
the H eadlight recommend Tillamook County to farmers who are
looking for a dairying country where they can make an indepen-
dent livelihood, and where they will not be perplexed, worried or
financially busted ou account of crop failures, blizzards, cyclones,
excessive heat or destructive snow storms. Stock raising, cran-
berry culture, salmon fishing and other industries are all worthy
of consideration.
The editor has endeavored to publish nothing in this edition
but what are actual facts, giving a concise idea of the exact condi-
tions as they really exist, and not in any way to overdraw them
by a flight of the imagination for the purpose of booming the
county at the behest of some wild cat real estate scheme. For
that reason the edition will prove interesting to those who are
seeking authentic information about Tillamook.
Particulars in
regard to the county and the resources thereof are little known on
the outside, and to fill a long felt want and demand for reliable
literary matter pertaining to Tillamook, the editor of the H ead ­
light undertook to issue this special edition.
One thing is certain, we can guarantee what we have pub-
lished about Tillamook County as the truth and nothing but the
truth, and upon investigation will be found as represented. We
asked several highly respected citizens to furnish us with articles
on the industries in which they were particularly familiar and
upon which they could speak with intelligence and practical ex-
perience. Their signatures are a guarantee as to the accuracy of
Some Interesting Facts Furnished by the Department
of Agriculture.
Another industry which is only in its infancy in Tillamook county, and which
could be carried on with profit, is that of raising Angora goats. There are only
150 in the county at the present time, probably 65,000 in the state of Oregon
and 200,000 in the United States. Experiments in the raising and keeping of
Angora goats in mountain pastures are making favorable impressions and
the few farmers who have done so in this county are more than satisfied at the
results, so much so that they are convinced that the Angora goat is a splendid
animal to clear up the bush, etc. It is hardly possible that the natural habitat
of the Angora goat is better adapted to its keep and development than in the
mountain ranges of Tillamook county.
An interesting bulletin has been issued bv the division of statistics, depart­
ment of agriculture, entitled “Keeping (»oats for Profit’’ (by Almont Barnes), and
it is so applicable to Tillamook county that further comment on our part is
unnecessary. Mr. Barnessays:
“It is from the goat skins that the greatest amount of profit from goat keep­
ing is derived in regions where the largest numbers of these animals are usually
raised. Practically all the goat skins entering into the commerce and the manu­
facture of the United States are imported. Ifall the goats in this country were
kept with the single object of supplying skins for market, they would fail to supply
a small fraction of the present demand and at the same time remain at their present
number. At four pounds to the skin, which is not far from the average weight of
dry skins, it requires the slaughter of 16,226,621 goats and kids to yield the
skins imported during the last fiscal year. This represents live flocks of foreign
goats aggregating from twenty-five to thirty million, at least for our present
supply of marketable skins alone.
“Very few of the goats in the United States are raised for the purpose of mar­
keting their skins. In the West the increasing flock are kept principally for their
valuable yield of mohair, though some account is now taken of the meat.
“In goat keeping on a large scale it is not alone the skins and fleeces which
enter into the account of profit, although these are primary, especially for distant
markets. If the skins, which represent over fifteen millions of invoice and twenty-
five millions of market value in importations, represented native stock, there
would be taken additionally into the home market and possible profit account
the whole animal—the flesh, tallow, bones, hoofs, horns, and perhaps the intes­
tines and their contents, which together may constitute half or more than half of
the entire marketable value. In addition there may be derived from the mature
females (always the principal portion of the flock) during much of their lives a
considerable value in milk for household uses or for market, or which can be con­
verted into the most saleable cheese, such as the Mont D'Or, Roquefort, Le Sas-
senage, and Levroux of France and Switzerland. So fully is the goat available
as a dairy animal, when bred to that object, that it is sententiously described as
‘the poor man’s cow,’ became of the combination of value with economy of keep­
ing. A female goat is relatively one of the most valuable of domestic animals.
Herded goats, under suitable and usually convenient conditions whether for skin or
fleece and by-products, are as surely profitable. There is the additional incidental
benefit that whatever foul land is regularly pastured by these animals for a few
years becomes clean, weedless, and bushless, and usually, being evenly fertilized by
them also, runs into nutritious native grasses.
“Ordinarily, goats need less attention than sheep, but w here permitted to
range an attendant is necessary. It is apparent that this attendant need not l>e
an ex|jeiurive one. The handling of Angora goats is somew hat similar to that of
sheep, the kids have to lie left liehind in the pens when the goats go out until they
are about six weeks old.
“Hilly, brushy lands are liest suited to the needs of the Angora goat.
In a pasture of this kind they can I* kept in reasonable numlier with­
out interfering with other stock, as they will live on what other stock
do not eat. The animals are hardy, good rangers, and long lived when
compared w’ith sheep, and do well on land where other animals find it
hard to live. Their value as brushwood cleaners can hardly lie estimated; but
Mr. Stanley, of Iowa, w rites as follows: ’To a person who has never seen the re­
sults of the application of Angoras to brush land a ride through my blue-grass
pasture is a revelation. Where only three years ago the ground was densely cov­
ered with undergrowth of hazel, crab tree, oak, buckberry, and other brush, it is
now growing the finest blue grass. At the present time I have over 600 acres
which has lieen reclaimed, and a conservative estimate would lie that the value
of the land has thereby l>eeii enhanced at least $10 per acre.’ ’’