Slocum believed that if the settlers could be better provided with cattle, which were as yet comparatively scarce, the prosperity of the country would be assured; and with this idea the Oregon people heartily agreed. The Hudson's Bay Company, while generous in providing farmers with work oxen, were not prepared to sell breeding stock freely, because their herds were not yet large enough to more than supply their own needs. The only practical way to obtain more cattle was to bring them overland from California, where the Mexican ranchers were slaughtering many thousands each year for the sake of the hides and tallow which they sold mainly to Boston shipovv^ners.^ There was one settler in the Willamette valley who was familiar with California, having lived there several years before coming to Oregon. This was Ewing Young, a man of considerable talent and enterprise, who now headed a movement for bringing cattle from the South. ^ Slocum encouraged the project in every way, especially
^ One of the most entertaining books on early California is Richard H. Dana's classic story, "Two Years Before the Mast." It gives an account of the author's experience while a sailor on one of the "hide and tallow "ships trading along the California coast.
2 Young was a noted frontiersman, originally from Tennessee, who early began trading in New Mexico. From there he went to California in 1829 and came to Oregon overland with a few others in 1834, driving a band of horses. One of his companions on this trip was the famous Oregon agitator, Hall J. Kelley, of Boston. Kelley had expected to bring out a colony to Oregon in 1832; but failing to secure colonists he finally started on his own account going to Mexico, thence to California and finally with Young to Oregon.
