one at Oregon Citty,"[1] and they sell trees for from one to two dollars each, I visited one today. They have had three or four grafting all winter, they will probably set eighty or one hundred thousand grafts this winter. This man brought his trees from the states, acrost the plains, about 3 years ago, and he has made a fortune at it. Chehale River, or Shole Water, I think will be a first rate places for that business. Garden sauce pays as well as amost anything. I paid so cts for two Cabbages today, one weighted about 14 lbs. It had stood out all winter.
Two or three vessels were wrecked[2] at the mouth of the Columbia, owing to their not being able to get a pilot. The engine and boiler for a steam mill at Portland was on one of them. Flour is getting to be plenty at San Francisco and is worth $16. in Portland, and $20. here. It is thought there is a plenty of wheat in the country to do the people until the next harvist, and there is thousands of it in the ground, we have heard of one man's having over three hundred acres in, and has people all the time putting in more.
I have thought of sending a barrel of Salmon to you if you would pay the freight on it, but I know not but it will cost you more than it will be worth to you however, if you want one, I will send you one next spring if you say so.
I see it stated in a paper yesterday that there is twenty thousand people intending to cross the plains for Oregon next season. I wish you would let me know the truth of it. Ann wants me to tell Emma that she washes for seven men now. The Steam-
- ↑ Possibly that of George Settlemier, who arrived by way of California in 1850, with a good supply of fruit-tree seed, which he planted on Green Point [a part of Oregon City]; Cardwell, "First Fruits of the Land," in Oregon Historical Quarterly, VII, 36. The obituary notice of Settlemier in the Oregonian, April 29, 1896, says that he stopped during the summer of 1850 in Oregon City, later removing to a donation land claim where Mount Angel is now located.
- ↑ The brig Vandalia, Captain E. N. Beard, was driven ashore five miles north of Cape Disappointment, January 9, 1853; the Merithew was wrecked January 12, near the same place; and on the same day the Mindoro went ashore near Sand Island. These may be the wrecks alluded to.
