Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/256

246 of agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, over the waste places of our yet young state. I have indicated how the first woolen mill was started on the Pacific side by the pioneer wool-growing farmers and may fittingly close this paper by summarizing the transactions of the last meeting of the Oregon Wool Growers' Association.

It met at Pendleton, Oregon, on the sixteenth of September, was welcomed by the mayor of the city, responded to by Hon. J. N. Williamson in behalf of the association. It passed a series of resolutions in behalf of farmers, ranchmen, cattlemen, and a number of other industries, particularly in the eastern part of the state, to the effect that the wool growers are receiving a benefit from the funds appropriated by the state for the purpose of paying a bounty on the destruction of coyotes and other predaceous animals far in excess of the amount paid out; declares a great reduction of these destructive animals under the law passed by the last legislature, and thanks that body therefor, predicting a rapid decrease in the expense to the state from now on if the law be continued, for which it prays, pledging its efforts to secure a similar law in adjoining states. It speaks for legislative appropriation of public money in assistance of the fair to be held in commemoration of the first exploration of the Pacific Northwest and pledges its assistance.

It indorses the proposed national forest reserve on the Blue Mountains as having an undoubted tendency towards settling the untoward differences that now exist between those owning cattle on the one hand and sheep on the other, known as "the cattle and sheep war.' It pledges