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Soil Repair in Willamette Valley 65

the first order of excellence, for which function they were equipped with an uncommonly long snout. Tradition has it — ^vouched for by humorous pioneers — ^that these beasts could reach through a rail fence even to the ninth row of potatoes.

A breed known as the "China/' mostly white, very prolific, medium size, was known at Puget Sound, reputed to have been imported in the early 40s from England. I am informed by George H. Himes that David J. Chambers had "Chinas" at Puget Sound when the Himes family arrived there in 1853.

In recent years the b^nnings of large pork production have started in Willamette Valley. While nearly every farmer has had his swine from earliest pioneer times, he has grown them usually in a small way. Not until the last few years has he begun to enlarge this business, as the farmer long ago did in the com regions of the Middle West.

VIII.

The most valuable group of farm animals has always been that of horses. From earliest time these faithful allies of agricultural life have thrived in Willamette Valley and else- where in Oregon. The pioneer horses were medium sized, strong and fleet — z combination animal for all-round service. .Later came Clydesdale and Percheron and Belgian infusions.

The American horse, like the American citizen, is a mixture of old-world families, and, as we are fond of saying that the human family in America has been improved by the inter- mingling, we may say this just as truthfully of the horse family. The English and the Dutch and the French colonists in America brought over their favorite breeds of horses; so did the Spaniards somewhat earlier, from whose importa- tions spread the equines that were in possession of the Indians when the whites began exploring the continent. The "Cayuse" ponies of the Upper Columbia River probably did not precede Lewis and Qark more than 150 years.

Although the pioneers used oxen for crossing the plains in preference to horses for "prairie schooners," horses were