Oregon Desert - Hardcover

Jackman, E. R.; Long, R. A.

4.17

70 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 087004074X ISBN 13: 9780870040740

Publisher: Caxton Printers, 1964

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Dust jacket notes: "This book, The Oregon Desert, is a hard one to define. A single paragraph may be a mixture of geology, history, biography, and rich desert lore. There is no other book about the Oregon desert and this one fills the void. Most of the material applies equally well to other Northern deserts in Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and neighboring states. Wild horses run through it; itinerant Irish sheepherders enrich it; all of the desert animals shyly and charmingly peep from its pages. Slow geological forces wend their relentless ways; the desert towns spring to life before your eyes and swiftly decay. The old-time cattle drives are clearly recalled. Here you learn what to look for and what to see in the desert. This book has no hero, except the desert itself. This wild, rough land does things to men who try to change it. 'The anvil wears the hammer out.' Little men withdraw into themselves and become smaller; mean men become meaner; but men with vision grow and expand to fit the wider vistas. So in the desert we have the worst and the best. Every page has its anecdote or quotable statement. There is enough material here to set up a TV writer for years. It is all purely American humor, becoming rare these days, since the snappy gag line has largely replaced the deeper, more subtle, more enjoyable humor you will find here. Almost everyone will like this book. It will charm and delight, and it will bring new knowledge of some kind."

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author:

Reub Long is a lifetime cowboy whose curiosity about the things around him is insatiable. He has managed to accumulate some thousands of acres of desert range where he runs beautiful horses and raises Hereford cattle. He has lived on the desert all his life, taking the cold, the wind, and the pitiless summer sun, and giving back gentleness and understanding. He is known to thousands as a desert philosopher with wit and wisdom far beyond most of us.

E.R. Jackman probably knows more people than any other person in Oregon. One can't get so far back on any country road that Jackman hasn't been there. He spent his mature life with the Extension Service of Oregon State University, working unceasingly to stop erosion, to make the fields better, and to create more wealth in Oregon.

So Reub Long is a cowboy who thinks like a scientist and Jackman is a scientist who thinks like a cowboy. They have been close friends for many years and this book is an outgrowth of their mutual liking of the desert.

Review:

This is the finest book written about our region in many years. It should be in every library in the Northwest and makes an especially fine gift for the male reader-whether or not he has experienced our great desert and semi-desert inland empire in Oregon, Washington, or Idaho. -- Eugene Register-Guard, Eugene, Oregon, October 7, 1964

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.