CORRESPONDENCE 449
beef from 8 to 12 cents per pound, pork from 14 to 18 and eggs 75 cents per dozen. The prospect of usefulness is also materially increased, especially in the country churches. Fee- ble and scattered as our churches are, I think they will pay from $50 to $150 this year for preaching, if they can secure it one Sabbath each month. These churches are all located in the midst of most important agricultural districts in the Wil- lamette Valley, some of them in the immediate vicinity of county seats, and must not be neglected. The population in all our towns is greatly reduced by means of that pecu- liar feature in the land! bill which requires four years' actual residence on a claim to obtain a patent from government. Numbers of the remaining citizens are adventurers who have left their families in the States and intend to return to their families as soon as they shall have sheared the golden fleece. Others are uncertain whether their business will justify the removal of their families to our shores. These and other cir- cumstances too numerous to be named render the success- ful occupancy of our towns more than doubly difficult than that of the towns in the Western states, technically so called. But with all these difficulties to encounter, Pedo-baptist churches, both Roman and Protestant, are sustaining their ministers in the most import^ of these towns by very little aid from the members in tK place. Should we entirely neglect these towns, they will soon become very difficult of access to Bap- tists. Your missionaries are of opinion that a missionary should be stationed at Portland and principally supported by the Board at home, if a suitable man can be found. A small family at this place would require $600 a year to enable a man to devote himself to the work of the ministry, $100 of which is as much as could reasonably be expected from the people of the place, unless favorable changes could be made. Portland, as I have informed you in a former letter, is the principal port in Oregon. The present population is estimated at 700 souls. It contains 35 wholesale and retail stores, two tin shops, four public taverns, two steam sawmills, one steam flouring
