All Over Oregon and Washington/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
COUNTIES COMPARED.
The agricultural capacity of every part of Oregon is so much greater than its present productiveness, that, to state the latter, would only be to disparage the former. It has been estimated that Yamhill County might produce 6,000,000 bushels of wheat, annually; whereas, it actually does produce perhaps one-ninth of that amount. But the time has not yet quite arrived when both the motive and the ability exist for Oregon farmers to do their best.
Yamhill County has produced some of the best stock ever exported from Oregon—the market for it generally being San Francisco. A good deal of stock is annually driven to the Sound in Washington Territory, where it either finds a market, or is exported by water to Vancouver's Island. It used to be that cattle and sheep were raised in the Wallamet Valley for the supply of the mining districts in Eastern Oregon and Idaho, and were shipped up the Columbia River to the Dalles, and thence driven to their destinations. However, since the settlement of the valleys of Eastern Oregon and Idaho, and the fertile Territory of Montana, they have been able, with the help of Utah, to furnish beef and mutton to the miners. Western Oregon still finds a market east of the mountains, but not to so great an extent as formerly.
Yamhill is so peculiar a name, that, to most persons, it suggests the probability of its being a yam-growing country. The original name, let it here be stated, was Che-am-ill—the Indian term for bald hills—and was applied first to the river at the falls, just above which was the ford, because these hills served as a landmark by which they easily found the ford. The name, corrupted to Yamhill, was bestowed upon one of the counties established under the Provisional Government; and though not particularly euphonious, is distinctive, and in Oregon annals notable.
Crossing the beautiful Che-am-ill hills, we have a charming view of the country on every side, and see again the familiar peaks of Mounts Hood, St. Helen, Adams, and Jefferson. We take leave here of the level plains of Washington and Yamhill counties, and find ourselves among the beautiful, fertile, rolling hills and alluvial valleys of Polk County. This county is about twice the extent of Yamhill, with not far from the same amount of cultivated land, and a few hundreds less population. There are no large towns in Polk County, the people being almost exclusively agricultural. The county-seat, Dallas, is a small place situated on the Rickreal (corruption of La Creole) River, nearly opposite to the State capital.
In riding over this lovely section of the Wallamet Valley, the freshly imported Eastern farmer must be struck with the general air of neglect and improvidence. He can not but look with wonder and regret at the shabby farm-houses, the unpruned orchards, and dead-and-alive aspect which pervades the country. Not understanding, perhaps, that which is explainable, and more or less excusable, in this "shiftlessness," he is led to doubt the advantages of the country for farming. But to do that, is to err; the real explanation lies in a knowledge of the early history of the country. In the first place, the farming community of the country was derived originally from the border States, as they were thirty years ago. They had never been good farmers in the States of Missouri, Illinois, or Kentucky. Upon immigrating to Oregon they received a large body of land—too large to cultivate properly—with no adequate market for its productions, if they could or would work it. They consequently fell into the habit of raising a little grain indifferently well, of raising stock in the same manner, without caring to improve it materially; of living on what they could buy with the money obtained for what they had to sell—instead of producing butter, cheese, choice fruit, soap, candles, and a hundred things which the careful and thrifty farmer supplies himself with. Of course, this style of farming never improves itself, but constantly grows worse as the years accumulate. The buildings, fences, fields, and farming implements grow constantly more and more dilapidated, while their owners follow suit.
Some of the most beautiful portions of "Western Oregon are under this curse of bad stewardship. We have occasion to wonder, when the annual returns are made of so many bushels of grain raised, and so many boxes of fruit shipped, and so many head of fat cattle exported, that they are so many. It is because the country is very hard to spoil, that it suffers so little by mismanagement. Not that Polk County, which originated reflections of this sort, is the only, or the chief, offender. There are just as bad farmers to the north of it, and to the south; yet, that there must be some tolerably good ones, the reports of the State Agricultural Society prove beyond cavil.
Polk County has every thing to make it rich and prosperous. All of its prairie and level land, and much of its upland, produces large crops of wheat, barley, and oats. Perhaps four-fifths of the whole county might be turned to grain-raising. It is an excellent fruit-growing region, producing apples, pears, plums, cherries, quinces, and small fruits in perfection. Every garden vegetable produced on this soil is excellent. The grain that docs not do well as a crop, is Indian corn; the fruits that fail as a crop are peaches, grapes, apricots, and the like tender varieties. These may be raised in certain localities, but are not sure every year, like the first-mentioned kinds. Eastern Oregon, which is not exposed to the sea-wind and fogs that give to the Wallamet Valley its cool nights and copious moisture, must furnish Western Oregon with Indian corn and peaches.
From the rolling surface of this county, it is evident that good water must be abundant, and mill privileges easily obtained. The mountains furnish plenty of timber for lumbering purposes; the valleys furnish cabinet-woods; and the long, sloping hill-sides are dotted with handsome groves of oak. The mineral resources of the county are as yet undeveloped, but promise to be valuable when they are opened up. Of mills, there are nine which make lumber, and four which manufacture flour, besides one woolen-mill. Schools in the different districts, and academies in three of the towns—Dallas, Bethel, and Monmouth (the latter a college)—evidence the prevailing desire of the people for education.
Next south of Polk, on the west side of the Wallamet River, is Benton County, containing nearly a million acres of land, extending from the river across the Coast Mountains to the sea. The eastern portion of it, along the Wallamet, is open prairie; while the western is first rolling, then mountainous. All that has been said of the other grain-raising sections applies equally to a considerable portion of Benton County; although this county is more celebrated for fine stock than for any other product. Wool-growing is one of the special interests of Benton, for which its grassy hills particularly adapt it—as also for the dairy business.
In the future development of the country, Benton County should rank high as a manufacturing district; for, besides the woolen factories it is capable of supporting, the lumber-mills it can supply from its mountain forests, and the flouring-mills its grain-fields can keep running, it has extensive beds of coal near the coast in localities where various other manufactures can be carried on, convenient to shipping points.
Perhaps the coast side of the county may sometime be reckoned most valuable for these reasons; and on account of the cod, salmon, and oyster fisheries. A wagon-road from Corvallis, the county-seat, to Yaquina Bay, gives this county an advantage over others that are quite cut off from the sea-coast by the inaccessibility of the mountains. The best dairy-lands in Western Oregon are those creek-bottoms and tidelands along the coast, where the grass is perpetually green and of excellent quality. Yaquina Creek and Alseya River are two streams rising in St. Mary's Peak, and flowing—the first into Yaquina Bay, and the other into the ocean.
The Alseya really falls into a bay, into which vessels of light tonnage can come in fair weather. The immense cedar forests which border this river make this an excellent point for establishing lumber-mills. The greater portion of this land is still Government land, with the exception of a small Indian Agency: another feature in favor of the coast side of Benton County. The hunter and trapper may find plenty of amusement and occupation about the bays and streams and in the Coast Mountains. Such game as elk, bear, and deer, are plentiful; while water-fowl, beaver, otter, and mink, are more than abundant. Corvallis, the shire-town, has already been noticed in another chapter; besides which there are six or eight smaller towns in this county—ten post-offices in all.
Lane County is the largest county in the Wallamet Valley, with a rare combination of agricultural and manufacturing facilities. Extending, as' it does, from the Cascade Mountains on the east, to the Pacific Ocean on the west, and embracing within its limits the three forks of the Wallamet River, besides that branch bearing the sobriquet of Long Tom—having thousands of acres of the best grain-land—thousands more of excellent pasture—thousands more of splendid timber, with water-power in abundance—it contains within itself the resources of a small State; being, in fact, more than twice and one-half as large as Rhode Island.
We have already spoken of this county rather particularly in describing the advantages of Eugene City—which must become, to a great extent, a depot for the productions of the upper half of the Wallamet Valley. To the eye, Lane County presents a very attractive diversity of surface: prairies, that from level become undulating; and hills, that from being long swells of scantily wooded uplands, rise gradually into high mountains, with crowns of rugged, evergreen forest. The value of taxable property in this county is greater in proportion to the amount of land cultivated, than in any other except Multnomah, in which Portland is situated.
The climate of this portion of the valley is rather drier than at the northern end; owing, perhaps, to its greater elevation of four hundred feet. The nature of the soil does not vary much from that of other portions of the valley in similar situations. It is a beautiful sight to behold the luxuriant wheat-fields about the last of June, just before the grain begins to ripen, and when the lovely spotted white lily—Lilium Washingtonium—stands head and shoulders higher among it, scenting all the air with its sweetness. The flowers of summer, and the richer landscape tints of autumn, make these valley-pictures always beautiful, sometimes exquisitely so.
Having reached the head of the Wallamet Valley through the counties above named, we find, on returning by the east side, that the principal difference between those on the west and these on the east side of the river, consists in the latter possessing a larger proportion of level prairie-land. There is also rather a better style of farming on this side of the river; on the average, more grain being raised to the acre, and other products in proportion.
Linn County has an area of nearly three thousand square miles; a population of nearly nine thousand; and pays taxes on $3,000,000 assessable property. The estimated productions for the year 1868 were—Wheat, 398,336 bushels; oats, 596,790; corn, 18,084; barley, 11,156; potatoes, 595,790; apples, 107,922; tobacco, 19,108 pounds; wool, 264,296; butter, 526,266; cheese, 8,852; hay, 3,776 tons. It was also estimated that this county contained twenty thousand head of cattle, eight thousand horses, twenty-five thousand hogs, and more than fifty thousand head of sheep. The amount of land brought under cultivation within the last three years, must have greatly increased the products of this county; and we regret not being able to give the report for 1871.
It strikes one, on learning the number of cattle, horses, and sheep, that the amount of hay raised is very inadequate to the demand. But the discrepancy is explained by the fact that sheep require no fodder in ordinary winters, when there is no snow. One month of feeding suffices for cattle—should the winter be severe, two months. Farmers sometimes have hay three or four years old before it is necessary to feed it out.
The freedom from care about their stock, proves, as might be expected, occasionally, a snare to the overconfident or negligent stock-raiser; and a winter of unusual severity, with snow, comes to deprive him of the cattle he was too improvident to furnish food for. A month or six weeks of pinching and starving will strew with the carcasses of his cattle and horses those bountiful pastures, which for years had never refused them support. That such a thing should occur is a reproach to the farmer, who has no excuse for not having food enough for a "hard winter" in Western Oregon. The straw which is wasted by burning, if saved, would suffice to feed his stock, in case of need. If not needed, it could be left to rot, and be returned to the fields as manure.
Even in the mildest winters, cattle, especially milch cows, would be much better for foddering; because from the almost constant rains, the grass is watery, and the cattle are drenched and cold. More sheds, and more dry food, would make the cattle and sheep better-looking in the spring; whereas with the present system they present a rough and miserable appearance by the time the winter is over.
The wealth of Linn County is not confined to its agricultural resources, though its people, with rare good sense, prefer to think so. That part of the Cascade Range in which the Santiam River has its rise is known to produce gold and silver, and also lead. But for reasons easily understood by the reader of our notes on the forests and mountains, "prospecting" is exceedingly difficult in the Cascades; and probably many years will elapse before the mineral wealth of Western Oregon is even partially understood. It is stored away in the hidden recesses of the mountains, there to remain a promise of employment and riches to future generations, when the population of the Wallamet Valley has become dense enough to drive men into other than the peaceful pursuits of agriculture.
Linn County has a large proportion of prairie-land, with here and there a group of hills, or a single isolated butte, furnishing a pleasant relief to the eye. Besides Albany, the shire-town, it has half a dozen small towns, all pleasantly located and prosperous. It contains fifteen saw-mills, and eight flouring-mills, besides one woolen-mill, one tannery, and several wagon and machine-shops; and is, in fact, one of the very best divisions of the Wallamet Valley.
Marion County is neither quite so large as Linn, nor has it as great an extent of level prairie; its surface being more diversified. In fertility it is quite equal; and in population and property exceeds its southern neighbor. Its mineral and commercial advantages are the same. Its manufacturing establishments are fifteen saw-mills, ten flouring-mills, one pork and beef-packing establishment, one woolen-factory, two carding-machines, one oil-mill, two tanneries, three machine-shops, one foundry, three sash and door factories, and three cabinet-shops.
Probably not more than one-eighth of the land in Marion County was ever broken by the plow. A considerable portion of it belongs to the School-fund, and may still be purchased for two dollars an acre. The prices of farming lands range from three to twenty dollars; and in the vicinity of Salem they command twenty to fifty. The Marion County assessment—indebtedness off—is $3,975,199, an increase of $438,864 over last year. The whole tax in the county this year, including the four-mill tax for building a Court House, is seventeen and a half mills.
Taking Marion as a specimen county, as from its diversity of soil we might, we find, first, that the soil of the river-bottoms is composed of sand, vegetable mold, and various decomposed earths; a new deposit being made, annually, by the winter overflow. These alluvial bottoms are exceedingly fertile, and adapted to corn, tobacco, potatoes, and vegetables of all kinds. Second, the soil of the prairies consists of a mixture of sand loam and alluvial deposit, with a base of clay. It is particularly adapted to the production of all kinds of grain, and tame grasses; and almost equally to roots, vegetables, and fruit. This soil is mellow, and not much affected by drought. Third, the hill land is of a red color, much impregnated with iron, in the form of a black sand, such as is found in the gold placers of Southern Oregon and California. There is also alluvium mixed with this earth, being the wash of the mountains. This soil is excellent for almost any purpose, producing superior wheat, and being better adapted to fruit than the soil of the prairies.
It is a pity that agricultural societies have not thought of giving prizes for model farms. It would be gratifying to know just what the land of Marion County, for instance, would produce, if made to do its best. We find at fairs choice lots of wheat, or oats, which may be the result more of accident than of good farming. We hear many persons say that twenty bushels of wheat to the acre is a fair crop; and others who profess to raise sixty bushels to the acre. Somewhere between the two extremes is the mean product of well-tilled land.
There certainly are some farms which yield fifty bushels to the acre, of wheat weighing sixty-six pounds to the bushel; and oats eighty bushels to the acre, weighing forty-seven pounds to the bushel. If any of these farms can be made to produce this amount of grain year after year, then we shall know what the Wallamet Valley can do toward provisioning the world. But nobody knows what is the greatest capacity of these farms, because almost nobody ever does any thing to improve or to restore the land. Twenty years of grain-raising, without manuring, has been wearing out the oldest land instead of improving it.
We have been assured that nine-tenths of the winter wheat raised in the Wallamet Valley has been sowed in February or March, on ground that had been plowed when saturated with the winter rains, and harrowed when the only effect of the harrow was to make it lumpy. After thus "mudding in" the seed, a crop of eighteen bushels to the acre is the result; while wheat sowed in the fall always produces a full crop. The ground for wheat, it is said, should be plowed late in the spring, before it has become too dry; and plowed deep. In September, or when the first light rains come to soften the earth, it should be cross-plowed and sowed. During summer the ground is too dry, and during winter too wet, for the plow. "Wheat properly put in, on good ground, and having a whole summer of sunshine, without storm, to ripen in, and a harvest without rain, has every chance of turning out forty bushels to the acre; and this is probably not too much to expect of Marion County throughout. The farm of Hon. Sam. Brown, adjoining the new railroad town of Gervais, is the crack farm of the east side. It contains one thousand acres under fence, and has under cultivation several hundred acres. A fine substantial farm-house, with all the necessary out-buildings in good repair, give the place an air of age and wealth which few Oregon farms possess.
Marion may also be considered a type of the Wallamet Valley in its other natural resources—of timber, water-power, and minerals; and, like the agricultural resources, they are scarcely yet touched upon by the hand of improvement. All the varieties of lumber-making trees and timber for cabinet and other purposes, which have been named elsewhere, are native to the mountains, the plains, or the river-bottoms of this county.
Of towns or post-offices outside of Salem, the county has twelve. One of the most thrifty of these is Aurora, on the line of the Oregon and California Railroad. Aurora is settled by a colony of Dutch, who own sixteen thousand acres of land, which they cultivate on Fourier principles; and suffer themselves to be ruled over by an autocrat, named Dr. Lyle, who manages not only their financial, but their spiritual and material affairs, quite to the general satisfaction. This seems to be just such another colony as that one settled at Zoar, in Ohio—a place famous for peace, plenty, and cheerful industry. They have a common interest, a common religion, and a common political creed—republican.
Clackamas and Multnomah counties are not, to any great extent, grain-growing—both being covered with timber, except some prairie spots. Farms are yearly being cleared out of the timbered land, but oftener for fruits and vegetables thtm for grain. The quality of the land is excellent, and its neighborhood to manufactures and to commerce will always make it valuable. The timber, water-power, mineral deposits, and fisheries of Clackamas County, seem to point to its future commercial prominence. The woolen-mill at Oregon City, and the iron-works at Oswego, are but the indications of its adaptability to manufactures.
The agricultural portion of Multnomah is comprised in eight miles of level timbered land, between the Wallamet and Columbia rivers; Sauvie's Island, with several other small islands, in the Wallamet; and a strip of bottom-land extending along the river—in all amounting to perhaps fifty thousand acres. The remainder is mountainous and heavily timbered, with occasional meadows, or ancient beaver-dams. It is the richest county in the State, owing to having Portland for its county-seat. On the very northern boundary of the county, adjoining Columbia County, are some valuable salt-springs, from which have been manufactured the very finest quality of salt, but not in quantity to supply the demand for best dairy and meat-curing salt.
There is another division of the Wallamet Valley—Columbia County—which belongs about equally to the Columbia Valley. It borders for thirty-five miles on the Columbia River, and for fifteen on the Wallamet. It has the Tualatin Plains for its southern boundary, and the Coast Range for its western. It contains about two hundred thousand acres of heavily timbered uplands and ridges, and about one hundred thousand of rich bottom-lands—most of it subject to overflow, in the summer flood of the Columbia.
Where the land has been cleared and farmed, it has proven very productive; the farmers preferring to raise fruit and vegetables to grain, and more of them being stock-raisers and dairymen than agriculturists.
The resources of Columbia County really lie in her timber, water-power, iron-beds, coal-mines, fisheries, and salt-springs. Her advantages are rather those of a commercial, than a farming, district. Lying just between the great grain-growing region and the great natural highway of commerce—the Columbia River—it can not be long before her natural wharves of solid basalt shall be in use to accommodate the exchange between these two.
The whole northern boundary of this county has a depth of water along it, varying from forty to seventy-two feet, with a channel wide enough in most places for vessels to "round out" with ease. These advantages can not be disregarded in the planning of the best and shortest routes for trade and travel. Whether or not the North Pacific and Oregon Central Railroad centre at Portland for the present, the time can not be far distant when an air-line road, from the Columbia River to some point on the valley roads, will be constructed; thus making, direct, a line from Puget Sound to San Francisco Bay. The future of Columbia County as a commercial district, will then be more assured than any other in Western Oregon, unless Astoria should finally become the great city of the Columbia; and even then, all the inland trade would drift to the Columbia by the air-line road.
The summer climate of Columbia County is several degrees cooler than that of Multnomah, having the breeze direct from the sea, by way of the Columbia River, In winter the south-west storms do not have access to it with full violence along the Columbia, on account of the sheltering hills toward the south. It has opposite to it some of the richest lands, especially dairy-lands, in Washington Territory; and Sauvie's Island is just at its eastern end. At present the population is small, but well-to-do and industrious. It has six lumber-mills, and one grist-mill, with others in course of erection. The steam saw-mill at St. Helen is one of the largest, if not the largest, in the State. Its capacity has been given elsewhere.
There are several small streams emptying into the Columbia in this county, whose valleys are being rapidly settled up by individuals or by colonies. The Claskenine, in the western end of it, has some excellent farms along its course. The farmers in the Columbia Valley have the advantage of lumbering and fishing, in addition to farming, as a means of acquiring wealth—an advantage which begins to be perceived in the increasing prosperity of this most sparsely settled portion of Oregon.
The entire area of the Wallamet Valley is about that of the State of Connecticut—or five thousand square miles—with almost no waste-land in it. It is entirely surrounded by mountains, except on the north end, and is 125 miles long, by an average breadth of 40 miles; without estimating the mountainous and timbered country, which would more than double the number of square miles. The soil of any portion, even as high as the tops of the Coast Mountains, is fertile; its adaptability to farming purposes depending almost entirely on its situation with regard to altitude or moisture.