CHAPTER III.
The land-office; its object and functionaries—How to find your land—Section 33—The great conflagration—The survivors of the fire—The burnt timber and the brush—The clearing-party—Chopping by beginners—Cooking, amateur and professional—The wild-cat—Deer and hunting—Piling brush—Dear and cheap clearing—The skillful axeman—Clearing by Chinamen—Dragging out stumps—What profits the farmer may expect on a valley farm—On a foot-hills farm.
By the time we had been here about a month and had settled down a little, we set about clearing a tract of wild land called section 33, situated nearly twenty miles away. You will ask, What does section 33 mean? Oregon is divided into several districts. For the Willamette Valley the land-office is at Oregon City, one of the most ancient towns in the State, having a history of forty years, dating from the rule of the Hudson's Bay Company. The chief officer is called the "register." He is supplied with maps of the surveys from the central office at Washington. Each map is of one township, consisting of a square block of thirty-six sections of a square mile or six hundred and forty acres each. Each township is numbered with reference to a baseline and a meridian, fixed by the original survey of the State, thus giving a position of latitude and longitude. From the land-office duplicates of the maps for each county are furnished to the county-seat and are deposited in the county clerk's office for general inspection. Each year a certain sum is set aside for new surveys, and contracts are given by the Surveyor-General of the State to local surveyors for the work.
The corners of each square-mile section are denoted by posts or large stones, and the neighboring trees are blazed or marked so as to direct attention to the corner post or stone.
Thus for years after the surveying-party have passed through wild land, there is but little difficulty in finding the corner-posts, and thence by compass ascertaining the boundary-lines of any section or fraction of a section in question. Surveys being officially made, boundary disputes are avoided, or easily solved and set at rest by reference to the county surveyor, who for a few dollars' fee comes out and "runs the lines" afresh of any particular plot.
Section 33, then, is the section thus numbered in township 10, south of range 7, west of the Willamette meridian. It lay just on the edge of the burned woods country.
THE GREAT CONFLAGRATION.Although forest-fires in Oregon are still of yearly occurrence, since settlement by the white men the range of the devastation has been by degrees narrowed and confined. Formerly the Indians started fires every year to burn the withered grass in the valleys and on the hillsides, and thence fire spread into the woods and ravaged many miles of timber. The "great fire" is said to have occurred about forty years ago, when many Indians perished in the flames, and others had to take refuge in the streams and rivers, till the destroying element had passed them in its resistless fury.
Standing on the top of one of these Coast Mountains, the eye ranges for many miles over hill and dale, dotted everywhere with the huge black trunks, the relics of the great conflagration. Many standing yet, some towering high into the sky, testify of their former gracefulness by the symmetrical tapering of the tall trunk, and the regular positions of the broken limbs and branches. But Nature is busily at work repairing damages; each winter's rains penetrate more deeply into the fabric of the trunk; each winter's gales loosen yet more the roots in which the living sap was long ago destroyed; each spring the wind brings down additions to the graveyard of trees, rotting away into mold; while a few young successors to the former race of firs are showing themselves clothed in living green, and a dense growth of copse-wood, hazel, cherry, vine-maple, arrow-wood, and crab-apple is crowding the hollows of the cañons on the hill-sides.
The brake-fern covers the hills, attaining a growth of five, six, or eight feet, and sheltering an undergrowth of wild-pea and native grass. Section 33 lies between the burned timber and the living forest, but its chief value is in the valley of some three hundred acres of alluvial land forming its center, through which winds here and there the Mary River, at this distance from its mouth scarcely more than a clear and rapid brook.
Eight of us started on the clearing-party with two light wagons, and a good supply of food, blankets, and axes and saws. A squatter had settled on one corner and built himself a hut and a little barn, and had got four or five acres of land cleared and plowed. But he had abandoned his improvements and gone some ten miles off, to clear another homestead among the thick woods.
The first night we camped out in a grassy corner by the wood-side, while the horses were tethered near.
CHOPPING BY BEGINNERS.The next day we began. Two or three of us had some little knowledge of the virtue of an axe, but the rest were new to the art. It was amusing to watch their eager efforts to hit straight and firm. One or two of our Oregonian neighbors came and looked on with rather scoffing faces, but advised us how to lay the brush we cut in windrows, with a view to the future burning.
We cut young firs, up to a foot thick, cherry poles from fifteen to thirty feet high, vine-maple as thick as the cherry but only half as tall, and here and there a tough piece of crab-apple. The brush was so thick that what was cut could only fall one way, so that the patch each man had cut by dinner-time was ridiculously small. Of course, the whole valley was not brush-covered—very far from it; there were great open spaces of clear grass, with here and there a tuft of blue lupin and rose-bushes. The firs once cut off were done with, and the stump would rot out of the ground in a year or two. The cherry-brush was no bad enemy, either; the young shoots would sprout from the root next year, but sheep would bite them off and kill the cherry out in a couple of seasons. But by all accounts the vine-maple was as tough in life as in texture, and that it was tough in texture our poor arms testified when night came.
For a few days we tried to be our own cooks, one of the party in turn being detailed for the purpose; but much good victuals was spoiled. So I sent into town for a Chinaman cook. That too much Chinaman is bad, I am prepared to support my neighbors in believing; but enough Chinaman to have one at call whenever you think fit to send for him is a comfort indeed. So Jem, as he called himself, came out to us. He wore a smile all day long on his broad face; and he was caught reading earnestly in a poetry-book he must have found left out of one of our bags; so I conclude he was a learned Chinaman. But he had strange fancies for his own eating. He cooked a wild-cat that was shot, and we laughed; but he proceeded next to skin and eat a skunk that had fallen a victim to its curiosity to see how white men lived, and had trespassed inside the hut; and that was too much. We tasted, or thought we tasted, skunk in the bread for a day or two, so we sent Jem back.
Turn out at five, breakfast over by soon after six, work till noon; then from one till six; then supper, and camp-fire, and pipes and talk till nine, and then to bed. Such was our regular life, certainly a healthy and not an unpleasant one.
DEER AND HUNTING.We had an excitement one night. The hut stood at the corner of the clearing, with a couple of good-sized firs in front of the door. A wood-covered hill came close to it on the right and rear. We were going to bed, when there was a howl outside, followed by a chorus from our three hounds. Out rushed a couple of us into the starlight with rifles in hand. The dogs had sent whatever creature it was up into one of the fir-trees and bayed fiercely round. Nothing could be seen among the thick branches. One of the party, an enthusiast, though a novice in woodland sport, got right close to the tree-trunk and managed to make out a form against the sky some twenty feet above his head. At once he fired, and down came the creature almost on his head; fortunately for him, the hounds attacked it at once, and a royal fight and scrimmage went on in the dark. Presently the intruder fought its way through the dogs to the rail-fence, but mounting it showed for an instant against the sky, and a second rifle-shot brought it down. Dragged to the light, some called it a catamount, but others more correctly a wild-cat (Lynx fasciatus). A right handsome beast it was, with short tail, and tufted ears, and spotted skin. It was and remains the only one that has been seen. It was attracted, no doubt, by some mutton we had hung up in the fir to be out of the way of the dogs. Fortunate, indeed, was our friend to escape its claws and teeth, as it has the reputation of being the fiercest and hardest to kill of all the cats found in Oregon.
The woods in front of the hut across the valley were a sure find for deer, and we could kill one almost any day by planting a gun or two at points in the valley which the deer would make for, and then turning the hounds into the woods above. It is a poor kind of hunting at the best, this hiding behind a bush and watching, it may be for hours, for the deer. You hear the cry of the hound far away, gradually growing nearer, and presently the deer breaks cover, and either swims or runs and wades down the river toward your stand; occupied solely with the trailing hound, and ignorant of the ambushed danger in front, the shot is generally a sure and easy one at a few paces' distance, often within buck-shot range from an ordinary gun.
THE SKILLFUL AXEMAN.Before the summer had passed, enough brush had been cut to clear some fifty acres of the valley, and we left the cut stuff piled in long rows to dry till next summer, that the burning might be a complete one when we did put fire to it. The fires would need tending for a day or two, and feeding with the butt-ends of the long poles, to finish the work; grass-seed sown on the ashes with the first autumn rains would speedily make excellent pasture in that deep and fertile soil. The fencing of the cleared acreage, and the plowing up and sowing with oats and wheat of some eight or ten acres of land from which the roots and stumps had been carefully grubbed out, would complete a "ranch," according to the Oregon fashion, and section 33 would lose that name and assume that of its first owner. The transformation from wild land to tame would be complete, and my work in connection with it would be done. So much for one way, and that the simplest, of making a home in Oregon. Longer experience taught us cheaper methods. For the large clearing-party with its attendant expense and need of oversight may be substituted clearing by contract; when some one or two of the poorer and more industrious homesteaders will contract to cut and clear at so much the acre or the piece, boarding themselves, and taking their own time and methods of doing the work. Some of the Indians are masters of the axe, and will both make a clearing bargain and stick to it, provided you are careful to keep always a good percentage of their pay in hand till the work is finished: fail to do this, and some rainy day you will find no ringing of the axe amid the trees, and their rough camp will be deserted, its inhabitants gone for good. I like to watch a skillful axeman. Set him to one of the big black trunks, six feet through. Watch how he strolls round it, axe on shoulder, determining which way it shall fall. He fetches or cuts out a plank, six or eight inches wide, and four feet long, and you wonder what he will do with it. A few quick blows of his keen weapon, and a deep notch is cut into the tree four feet from the ground; the plank is driven into it, and he climbs lightly on it. Standing there, another notch is cut four feet still higher from the ground, and a second plank inserted. Then watch him. Standing there on the elastic plank, which seems to give more life and vigor to his blows, it springs to the swing of the axe and the chips fly fast. As you look, he seems to be inspired with eager hurry, and the chips fly in a constant shower. Soon a deep, wedge-like cut is seen eating its way into the heart of the trunk. In an hour or so he has finished on that side, and leaves it. Taking the opposite side of the tree, he is at it again, and a big wound speedily appears. Long before the heart is reached, a loud cracking and rending is heard. The axeman redoubles his efforts. The tree shakes and quivers through all its mass, and then the top moves, slowly at first, then faster, and down it comes, with a crash that wakes the echoes in the hills for miles and shakes the ground. Then send him into the thick brush, where the stems are so crowded that they have shot high up into the sky. Two cuts on one side, and one on the other, an inch or two from the earth, and he drops his axe, and leans all his weight against the stem. It cracks and snaps; he shakes it, and gently it sways, bending its elastic top till it touches the ground before the stem has left its hold on Mother Earth. Before it has had time to fall its neighbor is attacked, and a broad strip of sunlight is soon let into the wood. Hard work? Of course it is: a day's chopping will earn you sore wrists and aching arms, but a fine appetite and the soundest of sleep. Unless a new-comer has had experience in the art and practice of wood-cutting, he will find it too slow work to undertake with his own hands the clearing of wild land to make his homestead. Let him buy a place where some of the rough early work has been already done, and there are plenty to be had, and by all means let him by degrees, and as time serves, enlarge his clearing and extend his fields. Or, let him contract for the clearing at so much the acre. Some of the very best wheat-land in this valley is covered with oak-grubs which have sprung up within the last twenty years to a height of from ten to twenty feet. Chinamen are generally used to clear this land, being engaged at the rate of from eighty to ninety cents a day; that is, from three shillings fourpence to three shillings tenpence English. They want looking after closely to get full value from their work. They come in gangs of any size wanted, and have to be provided with a rough hut to sleep in; they furnish their own food and cooking. The oak-wood is not only cut, but the roots are grubbed out, and the land left ready for the plow. The wood is cut into four-feet lengths and stacked ready for carting away. It is worth almost anywhere in the valley not less than three dollars a cord; that is, a pile eight feet long, four feet wide, and four feet high. Thus the farmer who has a little capital and so can afford the first outlay, need not hesitate to clear this oak-grub land, as the value of the cord-wood and the first year's crop should more than defray the expense of the grubbing.
In England it is usual to bring into farming course gradually woodland that has been cleared, sowing oats first. Here, on the contrary, the farmer may expect a good wheat crop from his cleared woodland the first year.
Yet another method of clearing is very effective and economical, especially at a distance from the haunts of Chinamen. A strong wooden windlass is made and fitted with a long lever for one horse. The windlass is anchored down near the oak-grub or cherry-brush to be got rid of. A strong iron chain is caught round the bush and attached to the windlass. The horse marches round and round, and winds up the windlass-rope; the roots soon crack and tear. The farmer stands by, axe in hand, and one or two strokes sever the toughest roots, and the bush is torn up by main force, root and branch. One man and a horse can thus do the work of six men, and do it effectually too.
PROFITS ON A VALLEY FARM.Before we turn to other subjects let me give some idea of what a newly arrived farmer may expect to get, if he settles on a valley farm.
Suppose the farm to consist of 400 acres, of which 150 acres are plowed land, the remainder being rough pasture, and 30 acres brush. Of the 150 acres, 90 acres would be in wheat and 60 in oats and timothy-grass. The wheat-land would produce 26 bushels to the acre, or 2,340 bushels in all. The value may be taken to be 90 cents the bushel, on an average of years, or $2,106 in all. The farmer would have a flock of 250 sheep, the produce from which in wool and lambs would not be less than $300 a year. He would breed and sell two colts a year, yielding him certainly $125, probably half as much more. He would have ten tons of timothy-hay to sell, producing $75. He should fat not less than a dozen hogs, worth $10 each, or $120. We will say nothing of milk, butter, eggs, fruit, and garden produce; but, from the sources of profit we have enumerated, you will find the return to be $2,726.
The necessary expenses would be the wages of one hired hand, say $300 a year; harvesting, $150, and other expenses, such as repairs to implements, horse-shoeing, and wheat-bags for the grain, $276, leaving a net return of $2,000. Supposing that the cost of the farm was $25 an acre, or $10,000 in all, I think the return is a pretty good one on such a figure, even if another $1,000 or $1,500 has to be added for implements, farm-horses, and sheep, to start with.
The figures I have given are from the actual working of a thoroughly reliable man, but relate to a year slightly above the general average of profit. You will see a large possibility of improvement in bringing more of the unbroken land into cultivation, either in grain or in tame grasses, and better sheep and cattle feed. So much for a valley farm at present prices. Naturally, the figures will alter as time goes on, as I do not imagine that the present prices of land will continue stationary, in the face of new railroads, improved communications, and growing population.
Let us look at the opportunities of an emigrant with less capital and greater willingness to dispense with some of the valley advantages.
PROFITS ON A FOOT-HILLS FARM.His 400 acres would probably give him only 50 acres of farming, cleared land; but adjoining, or at any rate near by, he would find land belonging still to the Government, or untilled and unfenced, for his cattle to range over. He would have, say, 20 acres of wheat, giving him 500 bushels, and 30 acres of oats and timothy-hay, yielding 600 bushels of oats, of which 200 would be for sale, and the rest for use and seed, and 30 tons of hay. He would have, say, 40 cattle, of which 15 would come into market each year. The average value of these would be $18, or $270 in all. Add 20 hogs at $10, or $200 in all. He must also raise and sell three colts a year, giving him $150. Looking to smaller items of profit, the farmer's wife should have ten pounds of butter a week to sell, at any rate, through the summer months, which at 20 cents a pound would give her $2 a week for 25 weeks, or $50 in all. Eggs should yield also not less than $40 in the year. This all totals to $1,240, against an original outlay of $10 an acre, or $4,000 in all for the farm, and $1,500 for implements and stock.
If the farmer is a sportsman, he may add a good many deer in the course of the year to the family larder, and also pheasants and partridges and quail, from August to November. I use the local names, the ruffed grouse and the common grouse being in question.
CHAPTER IV.
A spring ride in Oregon—The start—The equipment—Horses and saddlery—Packs—The roadside—Bird fellow-travelers—Snakes—The nearest farm—Bees—The great pasture—The poisonous larkspur— Market-gardening—The Cardwell Hill—The hill-top—The water-shed—Mary River—Crain's—The Yaquina Valley—Brush, grass, and fern—The young Englishmen's new home—A rustic bridge—"Chuck-holes"—The road supervisor—Trapp's—The mill-dam—Salmon-pass law—Minnows and crawfish—The Pacific at rest—Yaquina—Newport.
Some months ago I noticed an observation in the "Spectator," in a critique of a book of the Duke of Argyll's on Canadian homes, to the effect that what was wanted was such a description of roadside, farm, and woodland as should cause far-away readers to see them in their ordinary, every-day guise.
I have often felt the same need in books of travels, when I little thought it would ever fall to my lot to try to bring a land thousands of miles away before untraveled eyes.
So, take a ride with me, in May, from our town to Yaquina Bay, just sixty-six miles off.
I have already said enough of the valley lying here, in the early morning, calm and quiet, with the light mist tracing out the course of the great river for miles into the soft distance, and the Cascade Range standing out clear above. But we turn our backs on the town and face toward the west.
HORSES AND SADDLERY.One word on mount and equipment. The horse is a light chestnut—sorrel we call it here—about fifteen hands high, compact and active, with flowing mane and tail. He cost a hundred dollars six months back; in England, for a park hack, he would be worth three fourths as many pounds. He has four paces—a walk of about four miles an hour, a jog-trot of five, a lope or canter of six or seven, and a regular gallop. He passes from one pace to another by a mere pressure of the leg against his sides, and the gentlest movement of the reins. To turn him, be it ever so short, carry the bridle-hand toward the side you want to go, but put away all notion of pulling one rein or the other. He will walk unconcernedly through the deepest mud or the quickest flowing brook, and climb a steep hill with hardly quickened breath; if he meets a big log in the trail, he will just lift his fore-legs over it and follow with his hind-legs without touching it, and hardly moving you in the saddle. And he will carry a twelve-stone man, with a saddle weighing nearly twenty pounds, and a pack of fifteen pounds behind the saddle, from eight in the morning till six in the evening, with an hour's rest in the middle of the day, and be ready to do it again to-morrow, and the next day, and the day after that.
The saddle is in the Mexican shape, with a high pommel in front, handy for a rope or gun-sling, and a high cantle behind; it has a deep, smooth seat, and a leather flap behind and attached to the cantle on which the pack rests; huge wooden stirrups, broad enough to give full support to the foot, and wide enough for the foot to slip easily in and out. A horse-hair belt, six inches wide, with an iron ring at each end, through which runs a buckskin strap to attach it to the saddle, and by which it is drawn tight, forms a "sinch," the substitute for girths. The word "sinch" is a good one, and has passed into slang. If your enemy has injured you and you propose to return the compliment in the reverse of Christian fashion, "I'll sinch him," say you. If a poor player has won the first trick by accident, "I guess he'll get sinched soon," says the looker-on.
I advise no Englishman to bring saddlery to Oregon. He will save no money by doing so, and will not be fitted out so well for the hours-long rides he will have. I have only heard one Englishman out of fifty say that he prefers the English saddle, after getting used to the Mexican, and he had brought one out with him and used it out of pride.
Behind the saddle is the pack. Just a clean flannel shirt and a pair of socks, a hair-brush, a comb and tooth-brush, fit us out for a week or two; baggage becomes truly "impedimenta" when you have to carry it on your horse. You need not carry blankets now, for there are good stopping-houses at fit distances apart. But you may, if you wish, bring your Martini carbine, or Winchester rifle, for we may meet a deer by the way. So we start.
The first mile or two is along the open road. A brown, rather dusty track in the center, beaten hard by the travel; on either side a broad band of short grass; and snake-fences, built of logs ten feet long, piled seven high, and interlaced at the ends. In the angles of nearly every panel of the fence grows a rose-bush, now covered with young buds, just showing crimson tips. As we canter by, a meadow-lark gives us a stave of half-finished song from the top of the fence, and flits off to pitch some fifty yards away, in the young green wheat, and try again at his song. The bird is nearly as large as an English thrush, with speckled breast, and a bright-yellow patch under the tail. Just in front of us, on the fence, sits a little hawk, so tame that he moves not till we pass him, and then by turns follows and precedes us along the road, settling again and again upon the tallest rails. He is gayly dressed indeed, with a russet-brown back and head, and a yellow and brown barred and speckled chest, and all the keenness of eye one looks for in his tribe.
SNAKES.Early as it is, here and there in the road is one of the little brown snakes that abound in the valley; seduced from his hole by the warm sun, he is enjoying himself in the dust, and only just has time to glide hastily away as the horse-hoofs threaten his life. Their harmlessness and use in waging war on beetles, worms, and frogs, ought to save their lives; but they are snakes, and that suffices to cause every passer-by to strike at them with his staff.
The face of the country is vivid green, the autumn-sown wheat nearly knee-high, and the oats running the wheat a race in height and thickness. The orchard-trees close to the farmhouse we are approaching stand clothed from head to foot in flower; the pear-trees, whose branches are not now curved and bent with fruit, tower as white pyramids above the heads of the blushing apples.
Close by the orchard-fence the ewes and lambs feed, the little ones leaping high and throwing themselves away with the mere joy of warm sun and young life.
The farmer sees us coming, and scolds back the rough sheep-dog noisily barking at the strangers as he comes to his gate to shake hands. "Won't you hitch your horse and come in?" he says; "I want you to look at these bees—I have got six swarms already." And under the garden-fence stands a long, low-boarded roof, and under it a whole row of boxes and barrels, of all ages and sizes, with a noisy multitude coming and going. Straw hives are unknown, and any old tea-chest is used. Not much refinement about bee-keeping in Oregon; but honey fetches from thirty to fifty cents a pound.
We mount again, and, passing through a couple of loosely made and carelessly hung gates, we enter the big pasture. Not very much grass in it; it is wet, low-lying, undrained land. The wild-rose bushes are scattered here, there, and everywhere in clumps, and the face of the field is strewed with the dull, light-green, thick and hairy leaves of a wild sunflower, whose bright-yellow flowers with a brown center, all hanging as if too heavy for the stalk, have not yet matured. The cattle are very fond of this plant, and do well on it. An enemy of theirs is the lupin, here called the larkspur, one of the earliest of spring plants. Its handsome, dark-blue flowers do not redeem it, for the cattle are deceived by it, eat, and are seized with staggers, and will sink down and die if not seen to and treated. One of our friends tells us that he cures his larkspur-poisoned cattle with fat pork, lumps of which he stuffs down their throats. This information we submit to an unprejudiced public, but we do not guarantee that this remedy will cure. It is generally two-year-old cattle which partake and sicken—perhaps the calves have not enterprise enough, and the older cattle too much sense.
The plant is not so very common, but it has to be watched for and extirpated when found. Between the pasture and the wheat-fields stands another snake-fence and a gate. Alas! by the gate, and to be crossed before we reach it, is the Slough of Despond—a big, deep, uncompromising pool of black, sticky mud. The horses eye it doubtfully, and put down their noses to try if it smells better than it looks, and then step gravely in, girth-high almost, till we open and force back the heavy gate.
Skirting the wheat-field, between it and the creek, hardly seen for the undergrowth of rose-bushes and hazel, with here and there a big oak-tree, the road brings us out into a patch of garden-ground, filled with vegetables for the town housekeepers. Just now there is little to be seen but some rows of early peas and spring cabbage. Later on, the long beds of onions, French beans, cauliflowers, and all the rest, with the melons, squashes, or vegetable marrows, pumpkins, cucumbers, and tomatoes (which were the glory of the gardener), showed the full advantages of the irrigating ditches, fed by the higher spring, which are led here, there, and everywhere through the patch. For, remember, we had almost continuous fine weather, with hot sun and few showers, from the middle of May till the middle of October.
THE CARDWELL HILL.But here is the main road again, which we left to turn across the fields, and we are at the foot of the Cardwell Hill. The wood lies on both sides of us, and we mount rapidly upward. The wild-strawberry creeps everywhere along the ground, its white flower and yellow eye hiding modestly under the leaves. The catkins on the hazel-bushes dangle from each little bough. The purple iris grows thickly in the frequent mossy spots, and the scarlet columbine peers over the heads of the bunches of white flowers we knew not whether to call lilies-of-the-valley or Solomon's seal, for they bear the features of both. The purple crocuses have not yet all gone out of bloom, though their April glory has departed, and the tall spear-grass gives elegance all round to Dame Nature's bouquets.
We have ample time to take in all these homely beauties, for the road is too thickly shaded by the wood for the sun to dry the mud, and our horses painfully plod upward, with a noisy "suck, suck," as each foot in turn is dragged from the sticky mass.
But the undergrowth is thinner as we mount; first oak-scrub and then oak-trees growing here and there, with grass all round, take the place of the copse, and the mountain air blows fresh in our faces as we near the summit. Halting for a moment to let the horses regain their breath, we turn and see the whole broad valley lying bright in sunshine far below. So clear is the air that the firs on the Cascades, forty miles away, are hardly blended into a mass of dark, greenish gray; and the glorious snow-peaks shining away there twenty miles behind those firs, look to be on speaking terms with the Coast Range on which we stand.
But we pursue our westward course along a narrow track following the hill-side near the top, leaving the road to take its way down below, to round the base of the hill which we strike across. This hill is bare of trees, and is covered now with bright, young, green grass, soon to be dried and shriveled into a dusty brown by the summer sun. We wind round the heads of rocky clefts or cañons, down each of which hastens a murmuring stream. There the oaks and alders grow tall, but we look over their heads, so rapid is the descent to the vale below.
The mountains on the distant left of us are Mary's Peak and the Alsea Mountain; the former with smooth white crown of snow above the dark fir timber; and away to the right, among lower, wooded hills, we catch one glimpse of the burned timber, the thick black stems standing out clear on the horizon-line.
Passing down the hill and by the farmhouse at the foot, with its great barn and blooming orchard, we strike the road once more, passing for a mile or two between wheat-fields, with the Mary River on the left closed from our sight by the screen of firs that follow it all the way along; then by a bridge and by other farms, and between fir-woods of thickly standing trees, and up and down hill, with here and there a level valley in between, we strike the Mary River again for the last time, and climb the Summit Hill.
We are twenty-two miles from our starting-point, and claim a meal and rest. We are among old friends as we ride up to Crain's to dine, and the noonday sun is hot enough for us to enjoy the cool breeze among the young firs behind the house, as we stand to wash hands and face by the bench on the side of the dairy built over the stream close by. The horses know their way to the barn, to stand with slackened sinches, and nuzzle into the sweet timothy-hay with which the racks are filled.
THE YAQUINA VALLEY.On our way once more, in half an hour we stand on the edge of the water-shed, and look down far into the Yaquina Valley, lying deep between rugged and broken hills below. As we dip below the crest, the character of the vegetation changes at once.
We have left the thick woods behind. The last of the tall green firs clothes the crest we have passed, and the black burned timber is dotted along the hill-sides.
Last year's brake-fern clothes the hills in dull yellow and brown, except where patches of thimble-berry and salmon-berry bushes have usurped its place. The wild-strawberry has been almost entirely left behind, and instead there is the blackberry-vine trailing everywhere along the rough ground, and casting its purple-tinged tracery over the fallen logs. There is plenty of grass among the fern, and the wild-pea grows erect as yet, not having length enough to bend and creep. The river Yaquina comes down from a wild, rough valley to the right, to be crossed by a wooden bridge close to a farmhouse on rising ground. Two of our recently arrived Englishmen have bought this place, and are well satisfied with their position. About eight hundred acres of their own land, of which quite three hundred are cultivable in grain, though not nearly all now in crop, and really unlimited free range on the hills all round for stock; some valley-land which produces everything it is asked; a garden-patch where potatoes grew this year, one of which was six pounds in weight; a comfortable house and substantial barn; a trout-stream by their doors; a railroad in near prospect to bring them within two hours of a market at either end; and, meanwhile, a demand at home for all the oats and hay they can raise for sale—it would be strange, indeed, I think, if they who had supposed they were coming into a wilderness with everything to make, were not well pleased.
The only things they complain of are the scarcity of neighbors and bad roads—both, we hope, in a fair way to be overcome. They look contented enough, as they stand by their house-door to bid us good-day as we ride by. The valley widens out and narrows again in turn. In each open space stands a farmhouse, or else the site demands one.
As we get nearer to the coast, the river forces its way through quite a narrow gorge, following round the point of a projecting fern-covered slope, and under the shadow of the high hill on the northern side. The great blechnum ferns, with fronds three or four feet long, are interspersed with the thimble-berry bushes, and border the road. Syringa and deutzia plants and two varieties of elder, which bear black and red berries, but are now bright with abundant flowers, clothe the steep bank overhanging the river, which here widens out into calm pools, divided by ripples, and runs over rocks. And see, here is a natural bridge; a huge fir has fallen right across, and the farmer has leveled the ground up to the top of the trunk, some six feet high, and has set up a slender rail on each side of his bridge, and over it he drives his sheep into the less matted and tangled ground on the far side.
"CHUCK-HOLES."The road, cut into the steep hill-side, never gets the sunshine; the mud clogs the horse's feet and fills the "chuck-holes"—traps for the unwary driver. Be it known that oftentimes a great log comes shooting down the hill in winter, and brings up in its downward course on the ledge formed by the road. Notice is sent to the road supervisor by the first passer-by, and this functionary, generally one of the better class of farmers, who has charge of the road district, calls out his neighbors to assist in the clearing of the road. He has legal power to enforce his summons, but it is never disregarded, and the "crowd" fall on with saws, axes, and levers. They soon cut a big "chunk" out of the log, some ten feet long, wide enough to clear the center of the road, and roll it unceremoniously away down the hill, or lodge it lengthwise by the roadside. There they leave matters, deeming spade-and-shovel work beneath them. Next winter's rain lodges and stands in the dint made by the trunk when it fell, and in the depression left by the men who rolled the middle of the log away. Never filled up, or any channel cut to run the water off, a "chuck-hole" is formed, which each wagon enlarges as it is driven round the edge to escape the center. Woe betide the stranger who does not altogether avoid, or boldly "straddle," the "chuck-hole" with his wheels! The side of the wagon whose fore and hind wheels have sunk into the hole dips rapidly down, and he is fortunate who escapes without an upset, and with only showers of liquid mud covering horses, driver, and load, as the team struggles to drag the wagon through. But, pressing through the gorge, we emerge into a more open stretch. On the right of us rises a smooth, round hill, fern-covered to the top; and on the opposite side, next the river, planted on a pretty knoll just where the valley turns sharply to the north, thereby getting a double view, is Mr. Trapp's farmhouse, our resting-place for the night. We have made our forty-four miles in spite of the muddy road and steep grades, and there is yet time before supper to borrow our host's rod and slip down to the river for a salmon-trout. Excellent fare and comfortable beds prepare us for the eighteen miles we have yet before us on the morrow, and we get an early start. Two miles below Trapp's is Eddy's grist-mill, with its rough mill-dam, made on the model of a beaver-dam, and of the same sticks and stones, but not so neatly; the ends of the sticks project over the mill-pool below, and prove the death of numberless salmon, which strike madly against them in their upward leaps, and fall back bruised and beaten into the pool again.
An effort was made to pass a law, this last session of the Legislature, compelling the construction of fish-passes through the mill-dams; but it was too useful and simple a measure to provoke a party fight, and therefore was quietly shelved. Better luck next time.
MINNOWS AND CRAWFISH.Presently we leave the Yaquina River, which, for over twenty miles, we have followed down its course; for never a mile without taking in some little brook, where the minnows are playing in busy schools over the clean gravel, and the crawfish are edging along, and staggering back, as if walking were an unknown art practiced for the first time. The river has grown from the burn we first crossed to a tidal watercourse, with a channel fifteen feet in depth, and, having left its youthful vivacity behind, flows gravely on, bearing now a timber-raft, then a wide-floored scow, and here the steam-launch carrying the mail. But we climb the highest hill we have yet passed, where the aneroid shows us eleven hundred feet above the sea-level, and from its narrow crest catch our first sight of the bay, glittering between the fir-woods in the morning sun.
We leave the copse-woods behind, and canter for miles along a gently sloping, sandy road; the hills are thick in fern and thimble-berry bush, with the polished leaves and waxy-white flowers of the sallal frequently pushing through. We have got used by this time to the black, burned trunks, and somehow they seem appropriate to the view. But the sound of the Pacific waves beating on the rocky coast has been growing louder, and as we get to the top of a long ascent the whole scene lies before us.
That dim blue haze in the distance is the morning fog, which has retreated from the coast and left its outlines clear.
On the right is the rounded massive cape, on the lowest ledge of which stands Foulweather Lighthouse. The bare slopes and steep sea-face tell of its basaltic formation, which gives perpendicular outlines to the jutting rocks against which, some six miles off, the waves are dashing heavily.
Between that distant cape and the Yaquina Lighthouse Point the coast-line is invisible from the height on which we stand, but the ceaseless roar tells of rocky headlands and pebble-strewed beach.
Below us lies the bay, a calm haven, with its narrow entrance right before us, and away off, a mile at sea, a protecting line of reef, with its whole course and its north and south ends distinctly marked by the white breakers spouting up with each long swell of the Pacific waves.
Under the shelter of the lighthouse hill, on the northern side, stands the little town of Newport, its twenty or thirty white houses and boat-frequented beach giving the suggestion of human life and interest to the scene.
Away across the entrance, the broad streak of blue water marking the deep channel is veined with white, betraying the reef below—soon, we trust, to be got rid of in part by the engineers whose scows and barges are strewed along the south beach there in the sun.
Yaquina Bay, Newport, 1880.
Yaquina Bay, Newport, 1880.
NEWPORT.On that south side a broad strip of cool, gray sand borders the harbor, and there stand the ferry-house, and its flag-staff and boats.
Looking to the left, the fir-crowned and fern-covered hills slope down to Ford's Point, jutting out into deep water, which flows up for miles till the turn above the mill shuts in the view.
But we must not wait, if we mean to catch any flounders before the tide turns, and so we hurry down to the beach and along the hard sand bordering the bay under the broken cliffs, and are soon shaking hands with the cheery landlord of the Sea-View Hotel, who has been watching us from his veranda ever since we descended the hill from Diamond Point.
CHAPTER V.
Hay-harvest—Timothy-grass—Permanent pasture—Hay-making by express— The mower and reaper—Hay-stacks as novelties—Wheat-harvest—Thrashing —The "thrashing crowd"—"Headers" and "self-binders"—Twine-binders and home-grown flax—Green food for cows—Indian corn, vetches—Wild-oats in wheat—Tar-weed the new enemy—Cost of harvesting—By hired machines —By purchased machines—Cost of wheat-growing in the Willamette Valley.
Neither the first nor the second year did hay-harvest begin with us till after the first week in July. We did not shut the cattle off the hay-fields till the end of February, so that there was a great growth of grass to be made in four months and a half.
How different our hay-fields are from those in the old country! I should dearly like to show to some of these farmers a good old-fashioned Devonshire or Worcestershire field, with its thick, solid undergrowth and waving heads. I should like them to see how much feed there was after the crop was cut.
Here timothy-grass is everything to the farmer. Certainly, the old-country man would open his eyes to see a crop waist-high, the heavy heads four to seven inches long, and giving two tons to the acre. And he would revel in laying aside for good and all that anxiety as to weather which has burdened his life ever since he took scythe and pitchfork in hand. We expect nothing else but dewy nights and brilliant sunshine, so that the habit is to cut one day, pile the grass into huge cocks the same day, and carry it to the barn the next. Hay-stacks are unknown; the whole crop is stored away in the barn; and you may see sixty, eighty, or a hundred tons under the one great roof, and no fear of heating or burning before the farmer's eyes.
THE MOWER AND REAPER.The glory of the scythe has departed. Every little farmer has his mower, or mower and reaper combined; or else, if he can not afford to pay two hundred dollars or thereabout for his machine, he hires one from his more fortunate neighbor, and pays him "six bits"—that is, seventy-five cents—per acre for cutting his crop. Wood's, McCormick's, or the Buckeye, are the favorites here.
Our own machine, with one pair of stout horses, cuts from nine to twelve acres a day, according to the thickness of the crop and the level or hilly nature of the ground. It looks easy—just riding up and down the field all day—but try it, and you will find you have to give close attention all the time, to be ready to lift your knives over a lumpy bit of ground or round a stump, and to cut your turns and corners clean; and there are no springs to your seat, and a mower is not the easiest carriage in the world.
Nor is it light work to follow the horse hay-rake all day, lifting the teeth at every swath. Pitching hay is about the same work all the world over, I think; but at home one does not expect to make acquaintance with quite so many snakes, which come slipping down and twisting and writhing about as the hay is pitched into the wagon. It is true they are harmless, but I don't like them, all the same.
We put up a big hay-stack each year, in spite of the most dismal prophecies from our neighbors that the rain would mold the hay, that it would not be fit to use, and that even a "town-cow" would despise it (and they will eat anything from deal boards to sulphur-matches, I declare). But the event justified us, and the whole stack of 1879 was duly eaten to the last mouthful.
Wheat and oats follow close on the heels of the hay. We finished our stack on the 17th of July, and began cutting wheat on the 27th.
There is one harvest, and only one, on record in Oregon, where rain fell on the cut grain and injured it. The rule is to feel absolutely secure of cutting your grain, thrashing it in the field as soon as cut, and carrying it from the thrashing-machine straight to the warehouse.
There is lively competition to get the thrasher as soon as the grain is cut. The "thrashing crowd," of some seven or eight hands, which accompany the thrasher, have a busy time. They get good wages—from the $2.50 for the experienced "feeder" of the machine, to the $1.50 for the man who drives and loads the wagon, or pitches the sheaves. They travel from farm to farm, setting up the thrasher in a central spot, and "hauling" the sheaves to it. The quantity passed through the machine in one long day varies from one thousand to fifteen hundred bushels with horse-power; driven by steam, the quantity will run up to upward of two thousand bushels. These quantities seem very large by the side of those yielded by English machines, but they are too well authenticated to be open to doubt.
"HEADERS" AND "SELF-BINDERS."A great wheat-field of a hundred acres, with headers and thrasher going at once, is a lively scene. The "header" is a huge construction ten feet wide. Revolving frames in front bend the wheat to the knives, where it is cut and delivered in an endless stream into a great header-wagon, driven alongside the cutting-machine. Six horses propel the header in front of them, and move calmly along unterrified by the revolving frames and vibrating knives. As soon as the header-wagon is filled, it is driven off to the thrasher, whirring away in the center of the field, and an empty one takes its place.
Six horses to the header, two each to three header-wagons, eight to the horse-power on the thrasher, and one to the straw-rake, are all going at once. One man driving the header, one each to the three wagons, two feeding and tending the thrasher, one fitting and tying up the wheat-bags as the cleaned and finished grain comes pouring from the machine, and one hand at the straw-rake, are all busily at work. Very speedily the field is cleared, and the just now waving grain lies piled in a stack of wheat-bags in the center, waiting the departure of the "thrashing crowd," to be hauled by the farmer to the warehouse.
A little of the straw is taken to the farmhouse, for use as litter in stable and pig-sty; the rest is set fire to as soon as the wheat is gone, and a great, unsightly, black patch is the last record in the field of the year's crop.
The worst features of the "header" are that the wheat has to be much riper than for the reaper or self-binder, and consequently more is strewed about the field and lost; the machine cuts the wheat higher up also, and consequently leaves more weeds to ripen and leave their seed. Its advantage is the greater breadth of its cut and more rapid rate of work. In more general use is the reaper or self-binder.
Several of our farmers' wives and daughters can take their turns on these machines, and give no despicable help to the hardly-worked men. This year it is expected that twine will be substituted for wire, thus removing one great objection. A twine-binder was exhibited at the State Fair at Salem, in full operation, and worked well. Besides getting rid of the damage and danger of the wire getting into the thrashing-machines, an additional advantage will be the fostering the growth of flax in the State, and its working up into the harvest-twine. Be it known that these counties of the Willamette Valley produce the finest and best of flax, samples of which secured the highest premium at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876.
The culture of flax and its manufacture afford, as far as I can judge, one of the very best of the various openings at present attracting both labor and capital to the State. As a mere experiment I had twenty-two acres of flax sown on the 17th of June, on some land about three miles from Corvallis which unexpectedly came under my control. In seven weeks from that day I gathered a handful, indiscriminately, from an average spot in the field; the fiber of this was seventeen inches long.
The flax that was grown in Linn County, ten miles from here, and used in the twine-factory there, produced fiber from two feet and a half to three feet in length. In January last we saw it hackled, and the workman, a northern Irishman of long experience, told us, as he gave the hank he held in his hand a dexterous and affectionate twist, that he had never handled better in ould Ireland.
I should dearly like to see linen-works established here; not only are linen goods unreasonably dear on the Pacific coast, but it goes against the grain to see a splendid raw material produced and not turned to the best account. Flax is not found here to be an exhausting crop. The farmers who have grown it say, on the contrary, that their best wheat-crop has followed flax; while to neither one crop nor the other is any fertilizing agent used.
GREEN FOOD FOR COWS.One of the great difficulties the farmer finds here is to keep green food going for his cows during the harvest months. One successful expedient is to grow a patch of Indian corn or maize. Well cultivated, and the ground kept stirred and free from weeds, the absence of rain does not prevent its growth, and its succulent green leaves are eagerly munched at milking-time by the sweet-breathed cows.
Another crop just introduced here is the vetch, better known as tares, for the same purpose. Two friends of mine in Marion County, forty miles north of this place, have found the experiment a very successful one; the appearance of the two or three acres I put in this last winter goes far to justify them. Sown in December, about two bushels to the acre, the growth is very vigorous and the produce heavy.
Continuous cropping in wheat for many years has fostered the growth of the wild-oats, now a great disfigurement and drawback to the wheat-crop in this valley. Traveling north to Portland by train, this last harvest, it was sometimes even hard to say whether wheat or wild-oats were intended to be grown. Nothing but summer fallowing, thoroughly applied and regularly followed, can remedy this. I have known a farmer to send his wheat to the mill, and get back half the quantity in wild-oats.
To the timothy-hay fields a noxious plant called "tar-weed" is the great enemy on all damp or low-lying spots. The plant was new to us, but, once seen, is never forgotten. Fortunately, it matures later than the timothy, and so does not get its seeds transferred; but it is almost disgusting to see the skins and noses of the horses and cattle turned into the field when the hay is off, coated with a glutinous, viscid gum, to which every speck of dust, every flying seed of weeds, sticks all too tightly. Plowing up the field, and summer fallowing, are the only remedies when the tar-weed gets too bad to endure. Tar-weed is an annual which grows some eight or ten inches high, one stalk from each seed; short, narrow, hairy leaves of a dingy green and a tiny colorless flower offer no compensation in beauty for the annoyance it occasions as you pass through the field, and find boots and trousers coated with the sticky gum. It is a relief to know that it affects the valley only, and does not mount even the lower hills of the Cascade and Coast Ranges.
Before leaving the subject of harvesting I ought to give the cost.
It is not now the question of the capitalist who can afford to pay from $750 to $1,200 for his thrashing-machine in addition to $320 for his self-binding harvester to cut his grain; but of the struggling farmer, who has to make both ends meet by economy and fore-thought.
We will suppose that he has seventy acres of wheat to harvest, and that it will produce twenty bushels to the acre, a moderate suggestion.
COST OF HARVESTING.The cutting and binding in sheaves of the crop by a neighbor's self-binder will cost him $1.25 per acre, the contractor supplying the wire. The machine will cut and bind nearly ten acres a day; the cost, therefore, for the seventy acres will be $87.50, or say $90, to be safe.
The thrashing will cost him six cents a bushel for his wheat, or $84 for his fourteen hundred bushels; and the farmer has to supply food for the men and horses whose services he hires. This expense will naturally vary according to the liberality and good management of the farmer and his wife. It falls heavily on the hostess to provide for seven or eight hungry men, in addition to her own family; but plentiful food, well cooked, is no bad investment, for it reacts strongly on both the quantity and the quality of the work done.
A fair average cost is fifty cents a day for each man, and the same for each horse. The expense of keep of the cutting and binding, man and three-horse team for seven days, will, therefore, be $15. On a similar basis the keep of the "thrashing crowd" and twelve horses, for a day and a half and something over, will cost just $16.
The total outlay, therefore, on harvesting a wheat-crop of twenty bushels per acre on seventy acres,when all services and all machines have to be hired, will be $205. Or an average of just fourteen and two-thirds cents per bushel.
A glance will show what a good investment the self-binding harvester is, if only well cared for when harvest is over. The farmer who has a machine of his own saves more than six cents a bushel, and, on a crop of fourteen hundred bushels only, would pay for the machine in less than four years.
Let us see, then, what wheat-growing in the Willamette Valley costs—a matter of deep interest to the intending emigrant, and to farmers in other parts of the world who have to compete with Oregon-grown wheat.
We will take the same seventy acres, as a reasonable extent for a small valley farm. Once plowing, at the rate of two acres a day with a three-horse team, or one and a half acre for a two-horse team—that is thirty-five days' labor for man and three horses. Twice harrowing, at the rate of fourteen acres a day—that is ten days' labor for a man and two horses. Sowing, at the rate of twenty-one acres a day, or three and a third days' labor for a man and four horses. The seed will cost $98, at the rate of two bushels per acre and seventy cents a bushel.
The cost, therefore, of growing the crop will be $98 in money, and the labor of one man for forty-eight days and a third, and of a pair of horses for sixty-nine and a quarter days.
Putting the farmer's labor into money at the rate of a dollar a day, and that of his team also at the rate of half a dollar a day for each horse (and these are here the regular rates of wages), the result will be $117.50; add the $98 for the seed, and you arrive at a total of $215.50; or, on seventy acres, an average of three dollars and eight cents an acre; or, on fourteen hundred bushels, of fifteen and four-tenths cents per bushel. To this add the fourteen cents and two-thirds for harvesting and thrashing, and add twelve days' labor for man and one team of horses hauling the grain to the warehouse: this represents an additional cost of one cent and seven tenths per bushel, and thetotal cost then is thirty-one cents and seven tenths per bushel.
COST OF WHEAT-GROWING.Remember that this wheat is grown on the farmer's own freehold, which may have cost him twenty or twenty-five dollars per acre. Do not forget also a taxation of about fifteen thousandths a year on the total value of the farmer's estate, as arranged between him and the assessor—land, stock, implements, and everything else he has beyond about three hundred dollars' worth of excepted articles. But add no rent or tithe, and recollect that in this calculation the farmer's own labor and that of his team are charged at market price against the crop.
The charge for warehousing the wheat till it is sold is four cents a bushel; and the wheat-sacks, holding two bushels each, will cost from ten to twelve cents each.
Add, therefore, still nine and a half cents a bushel for subsequent charges, and the farmer who kept accounts would find his wheat, in the warehouse and ready for market, represented to him an outlay of forty-one cents and a quarter a bushel.
If he sells at eighty-five cents a bushel, that gives him a profit of $8.75 per acre on the portion of his farm in wheat.