CHAPTER XIX.
Industries other than farming—Iron-ores—Coal—Coos Bay mines— Seattle mines—Other deposits—Lead and copper—Limestone—Marbles —Gold, where found and worked—Silver, where found and worked—Gold in sea-sand—Timber—Its area and distribution—Spars—Lumber—Size of trees—Hard woods—Cost of production and sale of lumber—Tanneries —Woolen-mills—Flax-works—Invitation to Irish—Salmon—Statistics of the trade—Methods—Varieties of salmon—When and where caught— Salmon-poisoning of dogs—Indians fishing—Traps—Salmon-smoking.
It must not be inferred, from the prominence given in these pages to the farming and stock-raising interests of Oregon, that openings can not be found in many directions for new and rising industries.
Oregon is as rich in minerals as in lands for wheat-growing and cattle-raising. In the north of the State, about six miles from Portland, at a place called Oswego, on the Willamette, very rich deposits of brown hematite iron-ore have been discovered, and have for a few years been worked. The pig-iron produced at these smelting-works is now used in a foundry close at hand, to which a rolling-mill is just added. The iron is of the very best Scotch-iron quality, and commands equivalent prices at home and also in San Francisco.
At many other points large deposits of iron-ore are waiting for development. It is reported from Columbia, Tillamook, Marion, Clackamas, Linn, Polk, Jackson, and Coos Counties. In the Cascade Mountains it has been found in many directions, but as yet has not been properly prospected.
Coal abounds. The Coos Bay mines have been opened and worked for some years, and they keep quite a fleet of schooners plying between the mines and San Francisco. Other beds have been found on the Umpqua; and coal is reported from many points in the Coast Range. So far as my own knowledge goes, these mountain discoveries are of no very great value, from the want of continuity and uniformity of level, though it is but little more than the outcrop which has been tested in most places. A different report is given of a recent discovery in Polk County, in this valley, where a thick vein of stone-coal in the basin has been found. The coal I have seen in the hills is anthracite, nearly allied to lignite. The favorable feature is the outcrop at so many points in a northeast and southwest line of what seems to be the same vein.
Recently there has been a very energetic effort made to develop the coal-mines located in the Seattle district of Washington Territory. The presiding genius is Mr. Henry Villard, now so widely known in connection with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. The present output of these mines is about one hundred thousand tons per annum; but under the new arrangements it is expected that this will be raised to seven hundred and fifty thousand tons, so as to supply not only the San Francisco market, but also to deliver the coal at a moderate price at the various points, both on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, reached by the steamboats of the above-mentioned company. Three large steam-colliers are to be used for the ocean transport of the coal. Although this enterprise belongs to Washington Territory, I have thought it deserving of mention here, as being likely to have an important bearing on the development of Oregon.
MINERALS.Lead and copper have been discovered in abundance in Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas Counties, on Cow Creek, a tributary of the Umpqua River, and also on the Santiam among the Cascades.
Limestone, sandstone—both brown and gray—and marble quarries have been opened at various points in the State.
Gold is found in paying quantities at many points in Southern Oregon, and also in the gold-bearing black sand of the sea-beach, all along the southern and central portions of the State. The finely comminuted condition in which the gold occurs in the black sand has been a serious obstacle in the way of its profitable working; but the combined chemical and mechanical processes recently adopted bid fair to prove thoroughly successful. The Governor of the State estimated the product of Oregon in gold and silver in the year 1876 at not less than two million dollars.
The gold-mines of Baker County, and the gold and silver mines in Grant County in Eastern Oregon, have also recently been more fully developed, and with great success.
With the inflow of foreign capital, now begun in earnest, those best qualified to judge predict for Oregon a very high place among the gold and silver producing States of the Union.
The mineral district in Grant and Baker Counties will be shortly rendered accessible and profitable by the expected completion, both of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's line and of that of the Oregon Pacific, having eastward connections at Boisé City in Idaho, some fifty miles eastward of the eastern boundary of Oregon.
The timber of Oregon is of world-wide fame. It will take many years to exhaust the districts even now accessible to river, railroad, or harbor; and the opening up of the various portions of the State to be traversed by the railroads either now or shortly to be put in hand will bring to market the timber from hundreds of square miles of woodland yet untouched.
The following general statement is chiefly extracted from the "Report of the Government Commissioner of Agriculture" for the year 1875:
Baker County has a timber area of five hundred square miles, principally pine and fir. Benton County has a belt of timber-land of one eighth of a mile wide by forty-five miles in length, lying along the Willamette River, and another belt in the Coast Mountains of twenty-five by thirty miles.
This timber is principally pine and fir; there are also large quantities of splendid spruce; alder and white-oak, laurel and maple are also found. Alder grows from twenty-four to thirty inches in diameter, and is worth for cabinet-making purposes from thirty to forty dollars a thousand feet at the factory. There is a belt principally of spruce timber, a mile wide and how many miles long I can not say, heading northward from Depot Slough, a stream running into Yaquina Bay, many of the trees being eight and nine feet in diameter, and two hundred and fifty feet high.
I have seen a hundred and thirty pines cut for ships' spars on one homestead near Yaquina Bay, not one of which snapped in the felling, and which ran from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet in the clear, without a branch, and about as straight and level as a ruler. And this lot were cut from but a very few acres of the wood, and where it was easy to convey them to the tidal stream which floated them to the harbor. It was a pretty sight to watch the team of five or six yokes of oxen hauling the long, white spars from the wooded knoll on which they grew—the red and white colors of the oxen and the voices of the teamsters and lumbermen lending life and cheerfulness to the somber forest.
TIMBER.Clackamas is one of the best timbered counties in the Willamette Valley, fully one half of its area being in heavy timber. Pine, fir, spruce, white cedar, white oak, maple, and ash are found. About two thirds of the area of Curry County is covered with forests of yellow, red, and white fir, sugar-pine, white cedar, spruce, white and other oaks, and madroño. The timber-lands of Douglas are principally covered with the different varieties of evergreens and oaks. There are thousands of acres which would yield from three to six hundred cords to the acre not yet taken up. Not over one third of the area of Lane County is woodland. This embraces the different varieties common to the Pacific coast.
The timber-land of Linn, occupying half its area, is comprised in three belts of dense forest, half of which is red fir. Within the last twenty-four years thousands of acres of woodland have grown up from seed, and are now covered with trees from forty to eighty feet high, with a diameter of from ten inches to two feet. There have been made from one acre of fir-timber six thousand rails ten feet long by at least four inches thick.
Multnomah has a large area of timber-land, mostly yellow and red fir.
Three fourths of the area of Tillamook is in timber, and half of this is fir and hemlock. The forests of Umatilla are confined to the mountains, where they are very dense, and to the belts along the streams. Wasco has immense forests in the mountains, many of them as yet inaccessible. The general result is, that Oregon has in all 15,407,528 acres of woodlands out of a total area of 60,975,360 acres. The timber on the average is worth now about four dollars per thousand cubic feet at the saw-mill in the log, and costs when sawed into inch lumber about eight dollars the thousand feet of such lumber. The price of the lumber to the consumer varies from nine to fourteen dollars per thousand feet, according to the demand. Much of the fir and spruce timber will cut into six or seven logs of sixteen feet in length, the tree being six feet in diameter two feet from the ground.
From one cut out of a fallen fir on my own land we split one hundred and thirty-two rails of fully four inches diameter, and from several trees over six hundred rails each have been split.
A good deal of unauthorized timber-cutting goes on upon the Government land not yet taken up. When the logger is honest, he buys the right to cut from the owner of the land, paying "stumpage" of about fifty cents a tree. I have known many acres to provide over fifty of these big trees, thus returning a good price for the timber, and leaving rich and partly cleared land for pasturing purposes in the hands of the owner.
One of the industries that needs to be established in many parts of the State is tanning. Hides are plentiful, and of excellent quality; bark, both of oak and of hemlock, is easily procurable, and the water-power is abundant almost everywhere. At present the leather used is chiefly imported from California; it has been hastily tanned, and is of poor quality. The drawback to this business is that it absorbs capital before it begins to yield profit; but, the machine once having begun to revolve, the returns are steady, the risks few, the results permanent, and the profits very considerable.
WOOLEN-MILLS.The woolen manufacture in Oregon has already taken good hold. Oregon goods are well known in California, and in Philadelphia and New York also. They received well-deserved praise at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. There are three woolen-factories in the State: one at Oregon City, one at Brownsville, and one at Ashland, in the south of the State. Their blankets and tweeds are admirable for thickness, solidity, and softness of texture. The Oregon City mills employ a good many Chinamen; they work well and economically. There is every probability of a fourth factory being at once established in or near Albany; and the more the better, considering the ample water-power, and the abundance and excellence of fleeces.
Taking into account the quality of the flax grown in the State and the indefinite power of expansion of the product, seeing that the very edge of the flax-land has hardly yet been touched, while many thousand acres are specially fit for the crop, and considering, also, that linen in its various forms is unnaturally dear on the Pacific coast, it seems a pity that one or more linen-factories should not be established. The present disturbed state of Ireland has, we know, prepared many of its inhabitants for emigration, and among them are many trained in the growth, the preparation, and the manufacture of flax. Any persons familiar with this industry could not do better than transfer themselves, their capital, their machinery, and their staff of workers, to this free land; here they will find a hearty welcome, a fine climate, the very best of raw material, a market at their doors, unlimited opening for expansion of their business, and a habitation free alike from turbulence, riot, and oppression.
No book attempting to deal, in however general terms, with the industrial development of Oregon, can pass the business in canned salmon without notice.
The growth of the business has been marvelous. The following table shows the canning of the Columbia River salmon during the ten years ending with 1880:
Each case contains four dozen tins of one pound each, or two dozen of two pounds.
The total output of the Pacific coast for 1880 is estimated at 680,000 cases.
SALMON.Besides the Columbia River, which is the main source of supply, other Oregon rivers are laid under tribute. The Rogue River, the Alsea, Umpqua, Coquille, Nehalem, Siletz, and Yaquina Rivers are all salmon-yielding streams. The system followed is generally known. The proprietor erects his cannery on the edge of the river, generally on piles driven into the mud. The cannery consists of a large warehouse for laying out the fresh salmon as soon as caught. Next comes a building fitted with large knives for cutting up the salmon into the proper length for canning, and boilers in which the cans or tins are boiled. Then come the packing and storing houses. That the undertaking need be on a large scale may be judged from the fact that they may have to deal with three or four thousand salmon at a time, as the produce of one night's take, and these salmon averaging twenty-five pounds in weight.
The canneries make their own tins, one man, by the aid of ingenious machinery, putting together fifteen hundred tins in a day.
The boats and nets belong to the cannery. The fishermen are paid by the fish they bring in: one third belongs to the cannery in right of boat and nets; the other two thirds are bought from the fishermen at fifty cents a fish.
The importance to Oregon of the trade is shown by the proceeds for the year ending August 1, 1879, from the 412,924 cases exported being $1,863,069.
The tin for the salmon, and also for the canned beef which is prepared in several of the canneries, is all imported. The imports for 1879 amounted to 54,520 boxes, costing from $8 to $9 a box.
The number of salmon ascending some of these streams to spawn is almost incredible.
Both the Siletz and the Yaquina Rivers yield two kinds: one a heavy, thick-shouldered, red-tinged, hooknosed fellow, which is never eaten by white men when it has passed up out of tidal waters; the other a slim, graceful, bright-scaled fish, known as the silver salmon. Of this last there are two runs in the year: one in April and May, the other in October and November.
The heavy, red salmon runs in the fall of the year, from August to November, and the heads of all the streams, even to the little brooks among the mountains, are filled with ugly, dark, yellow-and-white spotted fish pushing their way upward, until I have seen five huge fish in a tiny pool too shallow to cover their back-fins. Some get back to the ocean with the autumn floods; the majority are left dying, or dead, on the gravel or along the edges of the streams. Here they are deadly poison to dogs, and to wolves also. It is almost impossible to keep dogs of mature age in the coast district; sooner or later they are almost sure to get "salmoned," and to die.
The only way is to allow the puppies free run at the salmon: two out of three will die; the survivor, having passed the ordeal, will be salmon-proof and live to his full age.
The symptoms of salmon-poisoning are refusal of food, staring coat, running at the eyes, dry and feverish nose, absolute stoppage of digestion, followed by death in about three days after the first appearance of poisoning.
All sorts of remedies have been unsuccessfully tried. A young dog may battle through, if dosed with Epsom salts as soon as his state is observed; for an old dog, I can find nothing of avail. Castor-oil, large doses of mustard, shot in quantities forced down the throat, calomel, aloes, blackberry-tea—all of these I have heard of, but have not the slightest faith in any one.
Therefore, any new-comers into the coast country bringing valuable dogs with them will have to keep them tied up, or else may expect to lose them, as I have unfortunately experienced.
INDIAN SALMON-TRAPS.The repugnance of the white man to the dark and spotted salmon is not shared by the Indians. They had a salmon-camp on Big Elk, the chief tributary of the Yaquina, last year, which I went to see. The river runs between steep hills, covered with the usual brush, and with a narrow trail cut through along the edge of the water. The tide runs up for about four miles above the junction with the Yaquina, and there, in a wide pool into which the little river fell over a ridge of rocks, hardly to be called a fall, the Indians had their dam and traps. Just below the fall they had planted a row of willow and hazel stakes in the bed of the stream close together and tied with withes. In the center was an opening—a little lane of stakes leading into a pocket some six feet wide. The Indian women sat out on the rock by the side of the pocket with dip-nets and ladled out the salmon, which had been beguiled by their instinct of pushing always up the stream into entering the fatal inclosure.
The Indiantyheesor shelters were on the bank close by—miserable hovels made of boughs, and some old boards they had carried up—and hung round with torn and dirty blankets to keep in the smoke. Poles were set across and across, and from these hung the sides and bellies of the salmon, while a little fire of damp wood and grass was kept constantly replenished in the middle of the floor, by a wretched-looking crone who squatted close by.
Newport Pier, 1879.
Newport Pier, 1879.
When we got there, a younger woman was opening and splitting the salmon just caught, pressing the eggs into a great osier basket, where they looked exactly like a pile of red currants. She gave us a handful of eggs for trout-bait; as every one knows, the most deadly and poaching lure for that fish. And we found the benefit of them that same evening at Elk City, four miles below, where the salmon-trout crowd almost in shoals to be caught.
CHAPTER XX.
Eastern Oregon—Going "east of the mountains"—Its attractions— Encroaching sheep—First experiments in agriculture and planting —General description of Eastern Oregon—Boundaries—Alkaline plains—Their productions—The valleys—Powder River Valley— Description—The Snake River and its tributaries—The Malheur Valley—Harney Lake Valley—Its size—Productions—Wild grasses —Hay-making—The winters in Eastern Oregon—Wagon-roads—Prineville —Silver Creek—Grindstone Creek Valley—Crooked River—Settlers' descriptions and experiences—Ascent of the Cascades going west— Eastern Oregon towns—Baker City—Prineville—Warnings to settlers —Growing wheat for the railroads to carry.
While Western Oregon and the Willamette Valley in particular have been settled up, the valleys, plains, and hill-sides of Eastern Oregon are only just now beginning to attract population.
But the reports of that country have spread far and wide through the valley, and half the young men are burning to try their fortunes "east of the mountains." When a youngster has been brought up in a wide valley, the eastern sky-line of which has been marked out, from his very infancy, by a line of rugged hills, over which the snow-peaks tower; when he has been used to see the mountains stand out clear and majestic, rosy in the glow of the setting sun, and then putting on their winter garments of purity, and shining cold in the clear moonlight of the winter nights; when he has watched them disappear as the mists of the autumn rains filled the valley, to be hidden for weeks from his gaze, and then suddenly revealed as the drying and vigorous west wind dispelled the veil which the warm south wind had only served to thicken—I can sympathize with the longing felt, even if unexpressed, to climb this barrier and find if there be in verity a Canaan beyond.
And then, until lately at all events, to the young and bold there was a strong attraction in the life on horseback, in the gallop after the straggling cattle over those rolling plains; in the bachelor life of freedom, where home was just where night found him, and where his comrades had made their fire and picketed their horses; and, though last not least, where the wealthy stockmen had started from the exact point where he stood, their capital good health, readiness to rough it, and a determination to get on.
But a few years ago this was what life east of the mountains meant. Then men found that sheep paid better than cattle; and the sheep-herder, with his band of merinos, took possession of the rocky hill-sides, on which the thick bunch-grass was already beginning to fail to hold its first vigor and abundance, and his peaceful but not unresisted invasion pushed the cattle-men farther into the wilderness.
The loathing and contempt of the stockmen for these encroaching sheep! Some of them actually encouraged, and refused to permit the slaughter of, the prairie-wolves, which did not molest the cattle, but waged war on the flocks. But the tide would not be turned back, and mile after mile the sheep pushed on.
The bunch-grass which the cattle lived on, and which only overstocking injured, gave way before the sheep; for these eat out the hearts of the young grass, and their range grew wider as the feed became more sparse.
And then the farmer followed the sheep-herder, and the eaten pastures were turned up by the plow. True, the soil was alkaline in many places, and rocky and stony to an extent strange to the eyes of the valley farmer, who hardly ever sees a stone. But there were streams on many a hill-side which only needed a little work to be turned on to and to irrigate the soil below; and many a valley was explored, whose level land gave promise of numberless farms.
Even if the land were bare and desolate-looking to a degree, and the farmhouse stood naked and unattractive, yet it was found that apples and pears would grow, and even that peaches would ripen well in a hotter and drier summer climate than is found elsewhere in Oregon.
And when the results of the first experiments were disclosed, and it was found that wheat yielded thirty, forty, and even fifty bushels to the acre on these very lands, the tide turned.
EASTERN OREGON.Men who had decried Eastern Oregon as a desert, fit only to pasture a few cattle and scattering bands of sheep, suddenly changed their tone, and nothing was heard from them but advice to leave the worn-out lands of the Willamette Valley, and go to this, which was the coming country.
And advantage was at once taken of this state of things to prepare the public mind for, and then to take up vast sums of money to provide, railroad and increased steamboat accommodation to bring the products of these eastern plains within reach of Portland and the seaboard.
What is this country like? The Columbia bounds the north, the Snake River the east of Oregon—the one running east and west, the other north and south. Nearly midway between the Cascade Mountains and the Snake River, the Blue Mountains run, roughly speaking, north and south. This range is much less elevated than the Cascades, but very wide, and rises gradually from far-reaching foot-hills about the center of the State.
Between the Blue Mountains and the Cascades lies a great stretch of open, rolling country—bare, rocky hills, not a tree and hardly a bush to be seen; until lately covered with bunch-grass and some sage-brush. This is some of the country to which the change of purpose applies which I have just described.
The prevailing color of the country is a reddish-brown, except when in spring a tinge of living green spreads with the growing grass.
Near the Cascade Mountains are wide tracts covered with fine volcanic lava-dust. Where there is moisture to be found, this soil supports a good growth of grass, and the pine timber stretches to its edge. But joining it come the bare alkaline plains. Their natural vegetation is the bunch-grass and the sage-brush (Artemisia).
The chief constituents in the alkaline formation are chlorides of sodium and potassium—demanding irrigation as the remedy for the excess of alkali, while beet-root is recommended as a first crop to absorb the surplus salt. Excellent crops are raised in the Ochico Valley, on this land; and there is no doubt that a very large portion of the tracts now being abandoned by the cattle- and sheep-herder will prove of enormous productiveness in wheat.
East of the Blue Mountains is found, among others, the Powder River Valley. This is in the western part of Baker County and partly in Union County. On the north and east a steep hill-side separates it from the Grand Ronde Valley; on the south and west rises the spur of the Blue Mountain range. The valley is about twenty-four miles long by twelve wide, thus covering two hundred and ninety square miles.
The lands in this valley may be taken as a type of similar valleys in Eastern Oregon. They may be divided into three classes. First, the bottom-lands pure and simple. These consist of alluvial soil of abundant depth and richness; the only question an intending settler need ask is whether they are subject to inundation from the overflow of the river, which invariably is found running through the whole length. Above the bottom-lands, and far exceeding them in extent, are the foothills, yielding in this instance fully one hundred and eighty square miles of excellent grain-producing lands, and adapted in all respects to farming purposes. And above these again rise the hills for pasturage, and only useful for grain-growing where facilities for irrigation can be found. The character of bareness does not apply to these hill-sides; the alkaline soil does not extend to them, and a richer vegetation, in which other native grasses and spreading plants come to the aid of the predominating bunch-grass, affords food to sheep and cattle all the summer through.
SNAKE RIVER AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.All the tributaries of the Snake River from the Oregon side run through a country of a somewhat similar character, and each of these streams is the source of life and vegetation. Among these other valleys may be named the Lower Powder River, Eagle Creek, Pine Creek, Upper Burnt River, Upper and Lower Willow Creek, and the Malheur. This last requires separate mention. It runs through the boundaries of the Malheur Indian reservation, now shortly to be thrown open to settlement, and offering about three million acres of fertile and desirable land.
The Malheur River runs from the Harney Lake Valley to the Snake. This last-named valley is about sixty miles long by twenty wide; and this area of twelve hundred square miles is mainly covered with a growth of grass so tall that a man riding through it on horseback in August can tie the heads of the wild-rye together over his head, or, to use another illustration, sufficiently high and dense to hide completely a horseman who diverges from the road or track. With the wild-rye are mixed bunch-grass, blue-joint, and quantities of the wild-pea vine. And the country north and south of it, though bare, is not barren and mountainous; but in the spring and summer, before the grass is up to its full height, a man can ride and even drive his wagon, day in and day out, until he gets out of the boundaries of Oregon.
The preparations which the settlers make for the winter consist mainly in cutting and storing for hay the natural grasses of the country. Fort Harney, which has been until lately a post held by two companies, has stabling for four hundred horses. Five years ago the troops got cut and stacked from the surrounding country nine hundred tons of choice hay.
Neither in this valley are the winters very severe. Until railroad communications are provided, the sparse settlers have to abandon themselves to isolation from the outside world, because the snow lies deep on the plateaus and ridges which extend between them and the haunts of civilized man. But within the limits of the valleys the inhabitants enjoy life in winter. The snow does not lie long or deep; and from so many sources that I am forced to credit it comes the information that no one accustomed to American winter in any of the Middle States need have any apprehension in coming to live in any of the valleys I have named.
Turning westward from the Snake River and traversing the Malheur Valley and the Harney Lake Valley, the traveler may follow one of the military wagon-roads—that one whose fortunes in the violent and scandalous attempts on the title to its granted lands I have before referred to.
From Camp Harney to Prineville, the principal town in the southern portion of Wasco County, the distance is about one hundred and forty-five miles. For between thirty and forty miles the road runs through Silver Creek Valley, or along land watered by its affluent streams. The description I have given of valleys in Eastern Oregon applies to this. The country on either side of the road consists of rolling hills, covered with bunch-grass and sage-brush, and occasionally sparse juniper. Settlement in this valley is very recent. But thirteen families had taken up their residence there previous to and during the fall of 1880, and several more are going in this spring.
GRINDSTONE CREEK VALLEY.Then Grindstone Creek Valley is reached. This is one of the head-waters of Crooked River. A perfect network of creeks and streams is passed before the main Crooked River is reached, and each stream and creek brings fertility to the land on either side of it and through which it runs.
A farmer named Moppin has the credit of growing the first grain on Grindstone Creek; and there, in the harvest of 1880, he raised six hundred bushels of fine oats on nine acres of land, and grew one hundred and fifty bushels of potatoes on less than two thirds of an acre; several of the potatoes weighed two pounds and upward.
Then, following down the course of the Crooked River Valley, we pass through a country which is described in the following terms by a settler of eleven years' experience:
"This Crooked River Valley is about seventy-five miles long, and extends almost due east and west. It is a beautiful valley, with little or no timber in it, with the exception of willows along the river. The average width of the river is about one hundred feet. Now comes the stock country on the south of this river, and along its entire length is one line of hills and plateaus, thickly covered with bunch-grass of the best quality. Every few miles comes in a creek from the highlands back on either side. On these streams, from head to mouth, with but few exceptions, are good farming-lands.
"At this time there are hundreds of thousands of acres of good land lying idle, waiting for the industrious farmer to fence and plow and raise grain on. But what is the use? There is no market for the grain except in limited quantities, as we have no facilities for shipping to the outside world. The consequence is, that if a man does not have money enough to go into the stock-business, he won't come here at all. The one great trouble is to get our supplies. Within a year after the completion of a railroad to this locality the people over in your section will be surprised at the vast amount of grain received from here. As it is now, we have to drive our fat cattle from one to two hundred miles in the winter to find a market, and by the time we get them there they are poor. Give us a railroad, and we can ship our fat stock five hundred miles to market, and afford to sell cheaper than those who live in your (Willamette) valley. We do not have to feed at all. We mark and brand a calf, turn him out on the range, and, when he is four years old, sell him for twenty dollars cash—net profit about seventeen dollars. Does that pay? Give us facilities for getting to a better market, and it will pay better."
Passing still eastward after leaving Prineville along this Crooked River Valley, and then to its junction with the Des Chutes River, the country retains its fertile and promising character.
A FARMER'S OPINION.A farmer of twenty years' experience in Oregon, and who is a thoroughly reliable man, writes thus: "I have known this country well for several years. This fall (1880) I have taken a journey through it right along east, traveling slowly and with a view to settling. What my opinion is you may judge when I tell you that I have made up my mind to settle in the Crooked River Valley, where I shall go with my family in the spring.
"I know no part of Oregon that pleases me better. You have the best of land for wheat, oats, and potatoes. You can get a good garden, and grow all the vegetables you want. You have unlimited range for your stock, where they will get fat on the natural grasses, and where you can put up all the hay you want. Cattle, horses, and sheep do equally well out there. You are going into a healthy climate, away from all fever and ague or any other sickness of that nature; and you are going to a place where the land is bound to be worth four times its present value when the Oregon Pacific Railroad is opened."
Beginning the ascent of the Cascades, you pass through and over some twenty miles of rough lava country, interspersed with strips of scattering timber-land, and then come to Fish Lake and Clear Lake, the paradise of the fisherman, the hunter, and the berry-gatherer and botanist.
Before I leave the description of Eastern Oregon, let me quote from one more letter from a settler of last year out in the Prineville country: "I am located on a ranch on Camp Creek, and eight miles below the famous 'soap-holes' (silver-mines). We can raise almost anything out here, unless it is a mortgage. We have all the potatoes, turnips, onions, carrots, and beets we want; all were raised on our ranch, and, by-the-way, they were immense. I pulled one turnip that measured thirty-four and a half inches in circumference, and quite a number ran as high as thirty inches. Early-rose potatoes do remarkably well here. I have in about five acres of rye, and will sow about twenty acres of wheat and oats in the spring."
I should add that the towns in Eastern Oregon, away from the Columbia, are beginning to assume considerable importance.
Baker City was described in December, 1880, as having about one thousand inhabitants, while the amount of business transacted would average fully $450,000. There were then six substantial fire-proof business structures, and two large school-buildings, namely, "St. Joseph's" and "The Sisters of the Holy Names." The former is said to be a large four-story structure, in brick and stone, of the pure Gothic style of the fourteenth century, with accommodations for about one hundred and fifty boarding and day scholars; it is managed by a Roman Catholic priest named De Roo.
Prineville is a very lively and bustling place, with about the same number of inhabitants. It is growing fast, several fine buildings having been recently erected, among them a convenient and substantial church. There are three large general stores, supplied with heavy stocks of goods; from this, as a distributing center, the stockmen and ranchers for fifty miles and more in every direction fetch the necessaries of life. In the summertime ten or a dozen heavily-loaded wagons may be seen any day starting out along this road (which was called no road!) for their distant homes.
WARNINGS TO SETTLERS.It must not be assumed that all Eastern Oregon could be divided off into farms of the character of these choicer pieces which such men as I have referred to have chosen and settled on. There is many a rough, stony hill-side, where the sparse vegetation struggles for life in the crannies of the rocks. There is many a stretch of sandy, alkaline plain, where the dingy sage-brush grows, with here and there a tuft of bunch-grass; there is many a gully where the thirsty steer would look in vain for water, even in a dirt-hole, to quench his thirst.
But all this is fully consistent with the fertility and attractiveness of the valleys and slopes I have described. For, remember, we are dealing with fifty thousand square miles of country, on which, if the existing farms were marked on a large scale-map, they would be hardly noticeable in the vast expanse of land waiting for settlement and population.
But he would be a short-sighted man who should think of farming in Eastern Oregon, as it now is, save in a few accessible spots, where proximity to a road will provide a market at his door for the produce he has raised. In Northeastern Oregon, where the great crops of wheat are beginning to be grown, the farmer is at the mercy of the Transportation Company, which hitherto has sucked the oyster and left the farmer the shell. For what profit can there be in growing wheat at thirty and thirty-five cents a bushel, that same wheat being worth one hundred cents in Portland, and the difference being absorbed in freight and charges?
And yet, so great is the charm of novelty, so prone are a large number of the emigrants to this State to try a new place, that land up there fetches from five to fifteen dollars an acre, just about the same price for which they could buy a farm in the valley foot-hills, where wheat was worth seventy-five cents against the thirty-five, and where churches, schools, post-offices, and telegraphs are already provided.
CHAPTER XXI.
Southern Oregon—Its boundaries—The western counties—Population—Ports —Rogue River—Coos Bay—Coal—Lumber—Practicable railroad routes—The harbor—Shifting and blowing sands—A quoted description—Cost of transportation—Harbor improvements—Their progress and results—The Umpqua—Douglas County—Jackson County—The lake-country—Linkville —Water-powers—Indian reservations—The great mountains—Southeastern Oregon—General description—Industries.
Southern Oregon is defined generally as bounded on the west by the Pacific, and starting from its western boundary is bounded on the north by the Calapooya Mountains, shutting in the Umpqua Valley, and then running eastward, taking in the lake country. In this division are included the western counties of Douglas, Coos, Curry, Josephine, Jackson, Lake, and the southern half of Grant and Baker. A great portion of the last-named counties is yet unsurveyed.
The western counties already possess, according to the census of 1880, a population of 29,081 souls.
The portions of Grant and Baker Counties properly belonging to Southern Oregon have only about two thousand people, the reason being that this country is truly inaccessible, being so far distant from the seaboard, and hardly traversed by a road.
Southern Oregon possesses several rivers and their attendant seaports. The most southerly is the Rogue River, which has a course of about one hundred miles, running through a very fertile but secluded valley. The bar at the entrance is shifting, and the channel very variable; but it is entered by both small steamers and by the coasting schooners which ply along the coast, with San Francisco as their port of delivery.
Coos Bay, some sixty miles to the north of the Rogue River, needs a fuller description, as it is the headquarters of the coal and lumber business of Southern Oregon. Detailed reports of the coal-basin give not less than seventy-five thousand acres of coal-bearing land, estimated to produce from the one vein at present worked not less than four hundred and fifty million tons of coal. As many as six workable seams are, however, known to exist, including one which has been prospected to eleven feet in thickness. Five coal-mines have been opened, which are capable of producing about two thousand tons of coal daily. The working of these mines is of an inexpensive character, much of the mineral being accessible from adits or galleries delivering their produce on the hill-sides.
The lumber shipped at Coos Bay is yielded by four large steam saw-mills, with an aggregate capacity of about one hundred and fifteen thousand feet per day.
There are also four ship-yards, from which between forty and fifty vessels have been launched, even up to two thousand tons burden.
The value of coal and lumber exported from Coos Bay was upward of $445,000 in the year 1877, according to the statistics collected by a committee of residents, when application was about to be made to Congress for an appropriation for the improvement of the harbor. It was then reported that a railroad was found to be practicable from Coos Bay along the Coquille Valley across the Coast Mountains. Such a line would then pass through the Umpqua Valley to Roseburg, with a practicable extension up the North Fork of the Umpqua River and through the Cascade Mountains into Eastern Oregon.
SHIFTING AND BLOWING SANDS.It was ascertained that the chief difficulty in improving the entrance to the port lay in the enormous quantity of movable and shifting sand, driven along the coast southward by the prevalent summer northwest winds, and then returned by the winter southwest gales.
So violent is this action that it is thus described: "Large tracts to the north of Coos Bay and along the rock separating its lower part from the sea, where once stood farms and pine-forests, are now buried to the tops of the highest trees. Immense quantities of this wind-borne sand are constantly going into the bay, and by its swift currents are carried out to form the bar, or be deposited in the bight to the east and north of the cape."
Let me quote a short description of this section of the country, on which before many years the tide of immigration must roll in. The writer is the Hon. B. Hermann, who is doing all in his power to draw public attention to his district:
"Ten-mile and Camas Valleys, being respectively ten and fifteen to twenty-five miles from the terminus of the Oregon and California Railroad at Roseburg, are without any other outlet. The cost of teaming to this point, added to the present exorbitant rates of railway freights, discourages the farmers of those sections in the cultivation of the soil. And yet some of the best and most extensive wheat-fields of the country are within those circuits, while a vast area is left annually to grow brush and weeds, and to remain of comparatively little value, which should otherwise contribute to the harvest of thousands of bushels of the finest grain.
"From Camas Valley, and along the Middle Fork of the Coquille River, until its junction with the main stream is reached, a distance of twenty-eight miles by survey, three fourths of the route is without even a wagon-road communication, travel being by trail, with ox and sled, saddle and pack horse. And yet there is found a goodly population, having substantial improvements, some very good farms in cultivation, with flouring-mills for the local accommodation.
"The land is very fertile, and capable of growing the usual cereals and esculents to perfection, but, owing to the great difficulty of transporting the productions to market, a very small portion only is cultivated, and much remains vacant, subject to homestead and preëmption....
"From the junction with the main river, and following the latter to near Beaver Slough, or Coquille City, the point of diversion of the route toward Coos Bay, an enterprising community is found, owning bottom-lands of rich alluvial soil, a great portion of which is now being cleared of timber, annually placed under cultivation, and large crops of grain garnered. This same remark applies to all the remaining portion of the main Coquille Valley, a distance of forty miles or more to the sea, and also along the North and South Forks, as well as the smaller tributaries. For a distance of seventy-five miles inland the Coquille Valley is capable of extensive agricultural development. Already this distance is closely peopled, all lands on the main stream settled, and improvements slowly made. Much grain is now grown here, a large proportion manufactured into flour by the various mills for home consumption and shipment to Coos Bay, while a considerable quantity of the grain is exported to San Francisco through the mouth of the river.
COST OF TRANSPORTATION."Owing, however, to the condition of the Coquille entrance, only small ships venture in, and even they are often delayed in the river for months at a time, with the shippers' cargo on board....
"Thus the hopeful people of this extensive and unrivaled valley for its soil, its productions, its coals, timber, and other abundant natural resources, are virtually left without an exit to the markets of the world....
"The cost on each bushel of wheat for transportation to Portland from any point in the Umpqua Valley is twenty-three cents, to say nothing of the added expense of one hundred and ten miles to Astoria, thence by sea to San Francisco and elsewhere. From Roseburg to San Francisco by way of Portland and Astoria is about eight hundred and seventy-five miles, and from Roseburg to San Francisco by the way of Coos Bay is only four hundred and sixty-five miles.
"Mr. James Dillard, as we are credibly informed, produced last year on his farm in Douglas County about six thousand bushels of grain. To have transported this only to Portland on its way to market would have cost him $1,380. The saving in transportation to Coos Bay by eighty-five miles of narrow-gauge road would be to this one farmer on one year's crop $780."
No wonder that in this district, as in all others in the State, the transportation question should be the burning one of the day.
The Coos Bay people succeeded in gaining the ear of Congress, and two years ago an appropriation of $60,000 was made for the improvement of the harbor.
The problem was a very difficult one for the engineers to solve, from the conditions above stated of the driven and shifting sand. It would not have been strange if the works first planned had needed alterations as they progressed.
But the success of the breakwater constructed by the United States engineers from cheap material, available on the spot, has been sufficiently marked to encourage the requests for further appropriations until the plans are executed in their entirety, and the opening of the harbor carried still farther out to sea.
It is reported now (in the spring of 1881) that the north sand-spit is being cut through by the current in the direction indicated by the lines of the breakwater, and that deeper and more constant water is found than heretofore—a good augury of success for similar works where the obstructions are not so shifting as sand alone, and where they are free from the influence of the sand tracts to the north, whence so much of the obstruction to Coos Bay entrance came. And this is our happy case at Yaquina.
The Umpqua River is the largest river that, rising in the Cascades, and draining a large and fertile valley in its course, flows directly into the Pacific, after cutting its channel through the Coast Range. There is a wide and very shifting bar at its mouth, through which the usual channel gives twelve or thirteen feet at low water. The river is navigable for all vessels which can cross the bar as far as Gardner City, five miles from the mouth, while smaller vessels can get as far as Scottsburg, twenty-five miles up.
Douglas County, now possessing a population of 9,596, is capable of sustaining a vastly increased number. It lies almost surrounded by mountains, but with a good outlet to the north along the valley lands through which the Oregon and California Railroad runs. It is well watered throughout by the Umpqua and its tributaries, while the northern portion of the county forms the head of the great Willamette, the aggregate of many creeks and streams having here their rise.
The climate of Jackson County is a good deal warmer than its mere geographical relations to the counties on the north and east of it would account for. Indian corn is a staple crop, and peaches and vines flourish exceedingly. The sun seems to have more power; and I have a vivid remembrance of heat and dust along its roads.
THE LAKE COUNTRY.Lake County is well named. Huge depressions in the land are filled with the Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes, the latter crossing the California boundary-line.
North of the Upper Klamath Lake, again, some twenty miles, is the Klamath Marsh, doubtless not long since another lake—now, in summer, the feeding-ground for cattle, in winter the home of innumerable flocks of migratory birds. Between the Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes runs a rapid water-course. The town of Linkville stands on its banks. I am told that there is water-power enough here to drive as many mills as are found at Lowell, Massachusetts. At Linkville is the land-office for Southern Oregon.
It has been proposed to run the California extension of the Oregon and California Railroad through the gap between Upper and Lower Klamath Lakes. Should that long-talked-of project ever be realized, the manufacturing facilities of this splendid water-power will no longer be suffered to lie dead.
Passing eastward, the great Klamath Indian reservation is reached—a tract I only know by hearsay as a land of hills and streams, of gullies and water-courses, of lava-beds and barrenness intermixed with quiet vales and dells of wondrous beauty—a land where Indian superstitions cluster thickly. The Indians are few and scattered, and this country, no doubt, ere long will be thrown open to the white traveler and hunter, to be quickly followed by the herdsman and the settler.
The great snowy pyramids of the Southern Cascades stand on guard. Mount Scott (8,500 feet), Mount Pitt (9,250), and Mount Thielsen (9,250) are placed there, thirty miles apart, forbidding passage between the warm valleys of Jackson County and the open plains east of the mountains.
But here, too, the hardy pioneers have found their way. I have talked with several men who are herding sheep and cattle on these plains. The merino thrives here even better than in Northeastern Oregon, and many thousand pounds of wool are raised. They describe the country as one of open plain and rocky hillside, of scarce water and abundant sage-brush; resembling in general features the tract fifty miles to the north, but, alas! containing scarcely any of the creeks \and streams which give life and fertility to Middle Oregon.
THE IDAHO BOUNDARY.Eastward again of Stein's Mountains you strike the head-waters of the Owyhee, an important tributary of the Snake, and at once recur the common features of fertility and consequent settlement. And thus the Idaho boundary is reached.