52 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
uriance ; but the nights of this salubrious valley are too cool for Indian corn or rye. These last grow to perfection further interior, where the summers are warmer than they are west- ward of the Cascade mountains. The few experiments made with hemp and tobacco have proven the competency of the soil and climate to their production. In short, I can think of noth- ing vegetable in its Mature, common within the temperate zone, that Oregon will not produce. Fruits have been, so far, very sparingly introduced; there are a few orchards of apples, peaches, and pears among the Canadians; but growing upon seedlings, the fruit is inferior. A great variety of berries are indigenous and abundant; among them the strawberry, cranberry, whortleberry, and a big blue berry of delicious flavor. The traveller stopping at the humblest cottage on a summer day will be regaled with a white loaf and fresh butter, a dish of luscious berries, and plenty of rich milk; to procure all of which the cottager has not been outside his own enclosure. The fields for cultivation comprise, as before remarked, but a small portion of the country; outside the fences is a common range for the cattle. These have increased very rapidly, and in nothing does the new emigrant feel so sensibly relieved from labor as in having to make no winter provision for his stock. Large droves of American cows and oxen have annually ac- companied the emigrating parties from the United States, and the Hudson's Bay Company have imported many from Califor- nia ; but of this indispensable appendage to an agricultural dis- trict, the far greater number in the Wilhammette valley have sprung from a supply driven in from California, through the instrumentality of Purser Slacum, United States navy, who visited Oregon eight or nine years ago as an agent of the government. Chartering a small vessel in the Columbia, he carried down to St. Francisco a ^number of passengers, gratis, whom he aided in procuring cattle, and purchased a number for himself besides, which were driven into the rich pastures of Oregon; their descendants are to the inhabitants a fertile source of present comfort and future wealth. It is but justice
