Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/247

Rh fate of their herders and flocks on Butter Creek, from which point nothing had been heard at Heppner for some days.

Generally the cattle breeding interest preceded sheep keeping on the public lands of the range portion of the state, and opposed its extension, first, because cattle, being more able and more willing to defend their young against wild animals, could be left free to range at will among others, the chief trouble with their management being to find the calf as soon as possible after birth and brand it with the mark of ownership; second, because, while left free to find fresh pasture, cattle would not stay on range soiled by the presence of sheep grazing; and, third, if they did, until the district was overstocked, the larger animals would perish first for lack of food, so that the invasion of sheep into a cattle range greatly increased the labor of caring for cattle and greatly added to risk of loss by a severe winter; and by thus being the cause of cattle scattering more and more over the wide range, increased the labor while diminishing the profits of ranging cattle over all of Eastern Oregon, except on the damp lands which margin the shallow lake beds of Southeastern Oregon, where the conditions of grass and water are much more favorable for cattle than for sheep. There were no rights in the question; each party was gathering where it had not strewn. To these, what may be called natural causes of bitterness against the expansion of sheep husbandry in Oregon in common with all the range states, may be added the fact that the care of horses, cattle, and sheep, acts diversely on human character. The tending to horses and cattle on the range is done on horseback. A few hundred head of them will scatter over hundreds of miles of country, intermixing