for the latter antedating the discovery of gold on the Pacific did not point out the market where the produce of well-tilled fields should be sold. The coincidences of that date, however, were most happy.
At Salem we found the legislature in session, and the excitement incident to the election of Mr. Harding as United States Senator having subsided, the body were moving in such business as looked toward the growing wants of the State. I found in Mr. Harding a plain, unpretending, and sensible gentlemen, and in whom the interests of Oregon will find a true representative. At the invitation of Governor Gibbs I visited the Committee of the State Fair, composed of delegates from all the counties. It was here decided to make Salem the site for holding the annual fairs; a point so central, so well suited in every respect, that there seemed to be great unanimity of sentiment in the matter. The grounds around are open and spacious, and you feel that you breathe the air and tread the ground of a rural city, in making a tour of its extent. It is one of the most beautiful localities I have seen in Oregon—on the right bank of the Willamette, with beautiful shade trees, neat cottages, not cramped or huddled together, but with ample spaces for gardens—with a fine view of the woods, which, in a vista of twenty miles, surround it—and, in the background, with the bold slope of the Cascades, renders it one of the most beautiful sites for a city to be found in Oregon. It is not only the political center of Oregon, but it is also destined to become a point of great manufacturing importance. It is surrounded by fine forests of oak, fir, pine, cedar. The large fields of grain here cluster around it as the center. Its pioneer woolen factory, turning its hundred of spindles, here rears its head, thus attracting toward it every milling interest. The same stream that turns its gristmills, turns its sawmills—and even then
