1825. McLoughlin, however, took steps at once to build up the herds and the flocks. He forbade the slaughtering of cattle ^ at that time and he says that the first beef was killed in 1838. By that time the native increase had brought up the herd to several hundred head and purchases of California cattle had increased it still more. Pigs, sheep, goats, and horses likewise became plentiful on the Vancouver ranges.
McLoughlin, while refusing to sell cattle, cheerfully loaned cows and oxen to the settlers and he also furnished work cattle to the Missions.
Grain raising. On taking possession of Vancouver fort, planting and sowing of grain became at once a fixed policy. The first year potatoes and peas only were grown. The second year McLoughlin procured and sowed small quantities each of wheat, corn, oats, barley, and timothy, all crops doing well except the corn. By 1828 he says the quantity of wheat raised was sufficient for the needs of the establishment.
French farmers in Oregon; American wheat raisers. In 1829 Etienne Lucier, a servant of the Hudson Bay Company, received assistance in seed and food supplies, cattle, etc., to begin farming in the Willamette Valley. Other servants of the company followed, until by 1843 some fifty families were living on French Prairie near the present town of Woodburn, and a few others were scattered here and there over the valley plain. When American settlers began to arrive they, too, were helped to become farmers and
1 Except one bull calf each year for rennet to make cheese.
