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difficult to harvest the minerals without scooping up soil. However, the exchange of wool for blankets and cloth continued. Among the early Mormons, cooperation was the road to success. As early as the middle lB60's the Manti Co-op Sheep Herd was organized. Jacob Keller, Sr. was the Manager with his brother, Conrad, as herder. Even though some of the people had cared for sheep before, they had. much to learn under "the new conditions. Abundant open summer and winter range was available, but sheep management on the farm and on the ranges were vastly different operations. Sheep preferences for feed differ from cattle. They require more protection from predators and have their own peculiar diseasesi scab and sore mouth. Sheepmen were apt learners. To cure sore mouth they mixed pine gum and mutton tallow which they applied successfully to the afflicted sheeps' mouths. The second operator of the Co-op herd was James Crawford, He pastured the herd In the mountains in summer and. on the desert in Castle Valley in winter with marked sujcess. The migration of the shepherd and his family with his flock is as old as the Bible. In Utah, it was only the herder, often a hired man, who migrated with the flock. James Crawford set the pattern for future Manti sheepmen to follow. Eventually, Crawford pulled his sheep out of the Co-op herd and mixed with a bunch which his brother, ¥. G. Crawford, had leased from Walter Cox. Tn this manner the Co-op herd was the seed flock from which many family flocks were formed. Surnames of some Manti families who ran sheep are: Anderson, Barton, Bown, Braithwaite, Crawford, Christenson, Hall, Kenner, Lowry, Larsen, Lund, Madsen, Miller, Hellor, Maylett, Munk (Ernest and Chris who once ran 15,000 head), Olsen, Parsons, Shank, Tuttle, Vorhees anl Wintch. The Gunnison Co-op Herd was organized as early as 1869- In summertime during the Black Hawk War, Jake Yaka herded the flock in the hills northeast of town. His hideout from Indians Has a dugout, the top of which was level with the ground. After Indian raids, townspeople with rifles went out to search for Jake, expecting to find him dead. They always found him much alive and the sheen safe. After the Blsck Hawk War, Andrew Fjeldsted leased the herd. The usual terms of the lease were; two and one-half pounds of wool to the head and six lambs per one hundred. Fjeldsted established a camp along the river between Gunnison and Ealina and wintered the sheep in the valley. He ran out of feed before spring and suffered heavy losses. At that tine It had not become customary to limit the lambing season to the more moderate spring nonths. Losses were sus- tained among winter-bom lambs. The next operator of the herd was Julius Christensen, son of Harmon Christenson, who had 200 herd to mix with the Co-op herd. Sheepmen learned through experience that the Indian rice grass, the -51- |
