Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/233

Rh sheep on the market at $5.00 to $6.00 per head, but soon began to take all that was fit for mutton for driving overland for food for the miners and others. This very soon took from Oregon many more and better sheep than had originally been received from California. The writer, who started with a small lot in 1849, sold his wethers to go to California in 1850 at $5.00 per head, but readily sold ewe lambs to his neighbors in 1853 at $12 per head, and refused an offer of $15 per head for lambs by a California buyer. Production had been neglected by so many who had been to the mines and got a little gold that food of all kinds was for a time at almost panic prices wheat $6.00 per bushel at Salem; mutton sheep $16 per head in Portland. This affected all business and called reflecting men back to the land. In 1851 Hiram Smith brought three thoroughbred Merino rams from Ohio, hoping to initiate a trade, but it was too early and he turned to the importation of mules instead.

In 1854 Dr. W. F. Tolmie began to sell off the sheep of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, and after disposing of all he could north of the Columbia River brought 1,500 and sold them in Marion County. They were of the California importation of 1842, improved by such importations of British breeds as the doctor could induce the company, whose agent he was, to buy. Some good Leicesters and Southdowns and indifferent Merinos were used with great benefit, but the sheep had been low kept and were affected with scab, and for that reason were a bad bargain to all purchasers, as little was known of that disease in Oregon at that time.

In 1857 Martin Jesse, of Yamhill County, Oregon, returning from California gold mines, heard the call for a sheep sale from the deck of a ship at San Francisco. He found on inquiry that the stock were thoroughbred Merinos from the Camden Park flock of the Macarthur