The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1897-10-23
WATER SUPPLY AND SHEEP.
Correspondent Take Issue With Govern
ment Experts Regarding the Cas-
cade Reserve.

| cade Reserve.
| ED. TIaEs- s-MoUNTAINEER:
Possibly may be con nsidered by youl
readers as crank when 1 raise my
voice against the government officials
allowing sheep to be ranged on the
Cascade timber reserve, but if am ii
can't be helped. for I am prepared to
prove that the pasturing of sheep in
the Cascade mountains has lessened
the water supply in the streams all the
way from the head of Tygh to the Col
umbla river, and if permitted for 20
years longer will make almost a bar.
rem waste of that part of Wasco county
from Deschutes river on the south and
east, the Cascade mountains on the
west and the Columbia on the north.
Before sheep were taken into the
mountains the ground was soft and
spongy, was covered with decayed veg-
citation the year round, and readily alb
sorbed the water from the melting
snow, serving as sort of storage reser-
vOir to hold the water until the sum-
mer months, when it drained off in the
streams, keeping them up until late in
the fall, so that the entire country in
reach of the water courses could have
been irrigated. Now the soil in the
mountains is packed solid by being
tramped over by sheep. When the
rains fall on it or when the snow melts
it at once runs off, and by fall the
streams are dried up long before the
time for irrigating is past. The water
supply is getting shorted each year.
No matter how much snow or rain
falls in the fall and winter it gets
away before the farmer needs it.
If this keeps up 20 years longer all
the creeks coming out of the Cascades
will be raging torrents when the thaws
come in the spring, and will be dry
sheep trails before the middle of sum-
mer. When this comes, wheat raising
in the section mention above will
end. The 500 or 800 farmers who live
there now will have to move out to
make room for the dozen or so sheep
men who own ranches in that country:
The government experts who report
ed that sheep did affect the water sup
ply in the Cascades might have
thought they knew what they were
about, but have lived here for 20
years, and know better. They re-
ported that sheep cut off the water sup
ply and were injurious to timber in
every other mountain range in the
country except the Cascades. If they
are injurious in the Rocky mountains
would like to know why they are not
in the Cascades? If they would hurt
the water supply in the Bull Run re-
serve, why won't they hurt it on the
creeks on this side of the mountains?
Maybe it's because Portland gets it's
water from Bull Run, and city people
need more and better water than do
we farmers who live along the east
slope of the mountains.
1 have no grudge against sheep or
but for the benefit of the
farmers in Wasco county who raise
wheat for living, say they should
be shut out of the mountains before
they drive US all off our farms. Let
the .sheepmen have that part of the
country where they own the land, and |
that part of the mountains where they |
will not interfere with the wheat rails
ers, that part from Tygh to the Cali
fornia line, but don't let them make a |
of the best part of Wasco
county by shutting off our water sup
ply. FARMER.
Wamic, Or, Oct. 16. 1897.