ADVANTAGES FOR THE HERDING SYSTEM
The country is one extensive prairie, except the mountains, which are covered with several species of pine, cedar, and fir. The prairies are rolling, and with the exception of a narrow belt of sand and sedge upon the Columbia, and portions of the Snake river, are everywhere covered with the bunch grass, which, from observation, I judge to be a richer, heartier food for animals than corn, oats, and the best pastures of the States. It is a fine, solid stalk, growing two feet high, with fine leaves, holds its freshness through the winter; I mean the old stalk, which mingled with the young growth, that usually springs fresh in the fall, forms a food for animals through the winter, preferable to the best hay. Horses and oxen perform labor at all seasons upon this grass simply, without the aid of grain; which I now think disposes the animal system to various diseases.
When I pack, I usually travel from thirty-five to forty miles a day, each horse carrying two hundred pounds—rest an hour at noon, without taking down the packs; camp while the sun is yet two hours high; hobble the horses and drive them up in the morning at sunrise. I find that horses will endure such labor for twenty-five or thirty days, resting of course on the Sabbath, upon this grass, without injuring them. Their wind is evidently better than that of horses fed on grain and hay. I have rode from Dr. Whitman's station to this, 125 miles, in nineteen hours, starting at 9 o'clock in the night, and driving a spare horse for change; but this was no advantage, for I find it is more fatiguing to a horse to be drove than to be rode. You doubtless recollect the man who overtook us on the head of Alapausawi, Thursday morning. He had left the Dalles or Long Narrows on the Columbia on Tuesday morning, slept a short time Tuesday night below the Umatillo, passed by Dr. Whitman's station, and slept Wednesday night on the Tukanan, {171} a distance from the Dalles of two hundred and forty miles; and the day he passed us he traveled fifty-five miles more.[224] He rode one horse and drove another for change. You will probably even recollect those horses, as they left us upon the round gallop. A man went from this place, starting late, to Wallawalla, and returned on the third day, sun two hours high, making the journey in about two days and a half. The whole distance traveled was two hundred and fifty miles, and but one horse was used. None of these horses were injured.
Cattle, sheep, horses, and hogs feed out through the winter, and continue fat. We very often kill our beef in March, and always have the very best of meat. Often an ox from the plains, killed in March, yields over one hundred and fifty pounds of tallow. You have seen two specimens, one killed at Dr. Whitman's, and one at this place. Sheep need the care of a shepherd through the winter, to protect the lambs from the prairie wolves. A band of mares should have a good stud that will herd them and protect the colts from the large wolves. Some thirty different kinds of roots grow abundantly upon the plains and bluffs, which, with the grass, furnish the best of food for hogs, and they are always good pork. The south faces of the extensive bluffs and hills are always free from snow, and, cut up into ten thousand little ravines, form the most desirable retreat imaginable for sheep during the winter. Here they have the best of fresh grass, and the young lambs, coming regularly twice a year, are protected from the winds and enlivened by the warm sun. We have a flock of sheep belonging to the Mission, received from the islands eight years ago; there are now about one hundred and fifty. Not one has yet died from disease, a thing of such frequent occurrence in the States. It must certainly become a great wool growing country.
I cannot but contrast the time, labor, and expense requisite to look after herds in this country, with that required in the States, especially in the Northern and Middle States, where two-thirds of every man's time, labor, and money is expended {172} on his animals, in preparing and fencing pasture grounds and meadows, building barns, sheds, stables, and granaries, cutting and securing hay and grains, and feeding and looking to animals through winter. In this country all this is superceded by Nature's own bountiful hand. In this country a single shepherd with his horse and dogs can protect and look after five thousand sheep.[225] A man with his horse and perhaps a dog can easily attend to two thousand head of cattle and horses, without spending a dollar for barns, grain, or hay. Consider the vast amount of labor and expense such a number of animals would require in the States. Were I to select for my friends a location for a healthy happy life, and speedy wealth, it would be this country.
Timber is the great desideratum. But the country of which I am particularly speaking, extending every way perhaps four hundred miles, is everywhere surrounded by low mountains, which are thickly timbered, besides two or three small ridges passing through it; also the rivers Columbia, Snake, Spokan, Paluse, Clear Water, Yankiman, Okanakan, Salmon, Wailua, Tukanan, Wallawalla, Umatillo, John Day's and river De Shutes; and down most of these timber or lumber can be rafted in any quantities. So that but a very small portion of the country will be over ten or fifteen miles from timber; most of it in the immediate vicinity of timber. The numerous small streams which occur every five or six miles, affording most desirable locations for settlements, contain some cotton wood, alder and thorn. But timber is soon grown from sprouts. The streams everywhere run over a stony bottom, while the soil is entirely free from stone. Streams are rapid, affording the best of mill privileges.