Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/207

Rh estimated that this county contained twenty thousand head of cattle, eight thousand horses, twenty-five thousand hogs, and more than fifty thousand head of sheep. The amount of land brought under cultivation within the last three years, must have greatly increased the products of this county; and we regret not being able to give the report for 1871.

It strikes one, on learning the number of cattle, horses, and sheep, that the amount of hay raised is very inadequate to the demand. But the discrepancy is explained by the fact that sheep require no fodder in ordinary winters, when there is no snow. One month of feeding suffices for cattle—should the winter be severe, two months. Farmers sometimes have hay three or four years old before it is necessary to feed it out.

The freedom from care about their stock, proves, as might be expected, occasionally, a snare to the overconfident or negligent stock-raiser; and a winter of unusual severity, with snow, comes to deprive him of the cattle he was too improvident to furnish food for. A month or six weeks of pinching and starving will strew with the carcasses of his cattle and horses those bountiful pastures, which for years had never refused them support. That such a thing should occur is a reproach to the farmer, who has no excuse for not having food enough for a "hard winter" in Western Oregon. The straw which is wasted by burning, if saved, would suffice to feed his stock, in case of need. If not needed, it could be left to rot, and be returned to the fields as manure.

Even in the mildest winters, cattle, especially milch cows, would be much better for foddering; because from the almost constant rains, the grass is watery, and