Two Years in Oregon Part 17

One great means by which it is sought at once to instruct, amuse, and infuse the school-teachers with common ideas and sympathies is by "teachers' inst.i.tutes." In each county a time is fixed by the State Superintendent of Education, and for two or three days all, or as many as can be got together of the teachers in the county, are gathered in some central town, and for two or three days have constant meetings.

This occurs annually.

The most experienced teachers give ill.u.s.trations of their favorite methods of instruction in the various subjects, and free discussion on these matters follows.

The days are devoted to this practical work, and in the evenings some more general entertainment is provided in the shape of music, lectures, or readings, and these are thrown open to the public. At one of these the lecturer, who was one of the professors at the Monmouth College, descanted on the high general standard of educational attainments in this Willamette Valley. He pointed out, in proof, that whereas through the United States the population supported one newspaper to each eight hundred, in this valley the proportion was one to three hundred or thereabout.

[Sidenote: _NEWSPAPERS._]

I found on inquiry that the figures were about correct. And the fact is, that it is only in the newspapers that the country people find nearly all their literature, and that barely a farmer can be found who does not regularly take three or more papers, and this makes the continued lives of these papers possible. A town of a thousand or twelve hundred inhabitants will support two or even three papers. How is it done? Examine one of these papers and you will find the outside pages better printed than the inside, and filled with a special sort of romantic stories, and short bits of general information; extracts from magazines and from Eastern or English newspapers. The inside pages have the true local color. Here you will see the leader, devoted to the topics of the time and place; descanting on the railroad news of the day; expressing the editor's opinions on the rates of freight or pa.s.sage, or on the advantages his town offers for establis.h.i.+ng new industries; or criticising the recent appointment of postmaster. Then the correspondence from various outlying towns or villages, written very often by the schoolmaster, and abounding in literary allusions and quotations. And then comes the amazing feature of the paper--a column or two are devoted to "locals." This is the style: "Beautiful weather.

New York sirup at Thompson's. The spring plowing is nearly done. Use the celebrated XL flour, the best in the market. Mrs. ---- has been in ----, attending to the woman-suffrage question, the past week. Our thanks are due to two fair ladies for bouquets of spring flowers, the first of the season. Our young friend Pete M---- called on us yesterday; good boy Pete. Judge Henry was at Salem the past week. Miss Addie Bines is visiting friends in town. Did you see that bonnet at the Presbyterian church on Sunday? The accidental pistol-shot the sheriff got is pretty bad. The rates of board at the Cosmopolitan Hotel are five dollars a week; three meals for a dollar. The Odd-Fellows will give a ball on the 25th. Our vociferous friend Sam N---- is starting for Puget Sound." And so on.

I observe and I hear that these locals are by far the best-read portion of the paper. A variety of items of sc.r.a.ps from the neighborhood, and advertis.e.m.e.nts, the longest of which relate to patent medicines of all sorts, fill up these two inner pages of the paper. The secret of cheap production lies in obtaining the paper, with the two outside pages ready printed, from an office in Portland, which supplies in this way twenty or thirty of these little newspapers. Thus the cost to the editor is reduced to the getting-up of the two inner pages, and, as will be seen, not a very high level of brain-power is needed.

"The Oregonian" is the only journal in the State giving the latest telegrams. Naturally it is published in Portland, and devoted mainly to the interests of that city. It is connected with the a.s.sociated Press, and possesses the practical monopoly of the supply of news, properly so called. Professing to be Republican in politics, it a.s.sumes the liberty of advocating doctrines and supporting candidates for office in direct violation of the acknowledged principles of the party and the wishes of the party managers. With a parade of fairness, and willingness to admit to its columns views and communications opposing the ideas it may be advocating at the time, it takes care to color matters in such form as to pervert or weaken all opposing or criticising matter. It is bitterly hostile to every movement in the Willamette Valley tending toward independence of Portland's money power and influence. While professing to desire the development of the State, it reads that to mean solely the aggrandizement of Portland. It enjoys a happy facility of conversion, and will unblus.h.i.+ngly advocate to-day the adoption of measures it denounced last week. Unreliable in everything except its telegraphic news, and oftentimes seeking to color them by suggestive head-notes and capital announcements, it is a calamity to the State that its chief journal should be at once the most unpopular at home and the most misleading abroad.

Of course, "The Oregonian" is not the only journal professing to be of and for the State at large. Several are published at Portland claiming the character of general State interest. Such are the "Willamette Farmer," a journal chiefly devoted to the farming interest, and with which "The Oregonian" is very frequently at war; "The New Northwest,"

edited by Mrs. Duniway, a lady enthusiast in favor of woman's rights and woman's suffrage, but making up with a good deal of ability a paper containing much of general interest; the "Pacific Christian Advocate,"

a religious paper; and also a number of other papers, Democratic and Republican, of no special note.

Salem, Albany, and Harrisburg possess newspapers above the average of ability and circulation.

I thought there was a good deal of wisdom in the letter of a correspondent of mine in one of the Eastern States, who concluded a letter of general inquiry as to the State of Oregon with a request that I would send him a bundle of local newspapers, "by which," said he, "I can judge better of the present conditions of life in Oregon than by the answers of any one special correspondent."

There are very few poor people in Oregon--so poor, that is, as to need charitable help. Such are taken charge of by the county court, and from the county funds such an allowance is made in the case of families as shall keep them from absolute want. In the case of single persons they are given into the care of such families as are willing to receive them in return for a moderate sum, say three or four dollars a week.

[Sidenote: _SECRET SOCIETIES._]

The various societies and orders, namely, the Freemasons, the Foresters, the Odd-Fellows, the Order of United Workmen, the Good Templars, and others, have a large number of adherents in Oregon. I believe the Freemasons number upward of seven thousand brethren; the present Grand Master is the Secretary of State, and a very efficient head he makes. The Freemasons and other orders take charge of the needy brethren with their proverbial charity, and thus relieve to a great extent the public funds.

CHAPTER XIX.

Industries other than farming--Iron-ores--Coal--Coos Bay mines-- Seattle mines--Other deposits--Lead and copper--Limestone--Marbles --Gold, where found and worked--Silver, where found and worked--Gold in sea-sand--Timber--Its area and distribution--Spars--Lumber--Size of trees--Hard woods--Cost of production and sale of lumber--Tanneries --Woolen-mills--Flax-works--Invitation to Irish--Salmon--Statistics of the trade--Methods--Varieties of salmon--When and where caught-- Salmon-poisoning of dogs--Indians fis.h.i.+ng--Traps--Salmon-smoking.

It must not be inferred, from the prominence given in these pages to the farming and stock-raising interests of Oregon, that openings can not be found in many directions for new and rising industries.

Oregon is as rich in minerals as in lands for wheat-growing and cattle-raising. In the north of the State, about six miles from Portland, at a place called Oswego, on the Willamette, very rich deposits of brown hemat.i.te iron-ore have been discovered, and have for a few years been worked. The pig-iron produced at these smelting-works is now used in a foundry close at hand, to which a rolling-mill is just added. The iron is of the very best Scotch-iron quality, and commands equivalent prices at home and also in San Francisco.

At many other points large deposits of iron-ore are waiting for development. It is reported from Columbia, Tillamook, Marion, Clackamas, Linn, Polk, Jackson, and Coos Counties. In the Cascade Mountains it has been found in many directions, but as yet has not been properly prospected.

Coal abounds. The Coos Bay mines have been opened and worked for some years, and they keep quite a fleet of schooners plying between the mines and San Francisco. Other beds have been found on the Umpqua; and coal is reported from many points in the Coast Range. So far as my own knowledge goes, these mountain discoveries are of no very great value, from the want of continuity and uniformity of level, though it is but little more than the outcrop which has been tested in most places. A different report is given of a recent discovery in Polk County, in this valley, where a thick vein of stone-coal in the basin has been found.

The coal I have seen in the hills is anthracite, nearly allied to lignite. The favorable feature is the outcrop at so many points in a northeast and southwest line of what seems to be the same vein.

Recently there has been a very energetic effort made to develop the coal-mines located in the Seattle district of Was.h.i.+ngton Territory. The presiding genius is Mr. Henry Villard, now so widely known in connection with the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company. The present output of these mines is about one hundred thousand tons per annum; but under the new arrangements it is expected that this will be raised to seven hundred and fifty thousand tons, so as to supply not only the San Francisco market, but also to deliver the coal at a moderate price at the various points, both on the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, reached by the steamboats of the above-mentioned company. Three large steam-colliers are to be used for the ocean transport of the coal.

Although this enterprise belongs to Was.h.i.+ngton Territory, I have thought it deserving of mention here, as being likely to have an important bearing on the development of Oregon.

[Sidenote: _MINERALS._]

Lead and copper have been discovered in abundance in Jackson, Josephine, and Douglas Counties, on Cow Creek, a tributary of the Umpqua River, and also on the Santiam among the Cascades.

Limestone, sandstone--both brown and gray--and marble quarries have been opened at various points in the State.

Gold is found in paying quant.i.ties at many points in Southern Oregon, and also in the gold-bearing black sand of the sea-beach, all along the southern and central portions of the State. The finely comminuted condition in which the gold occurs in the black sand has been a serious obstacle in the way of its profitable working; but the combined chemical and mechanical processes recently adopted bid fair to prove thoroughly successful. The Governor of the State estimated the product of Oregon in gold and silver in the year 1876 at not less than two million dollars.

The gold-mines of Baker County, and the gold and silver mines in Grant County in Eastern Oregon, have also recently been more fully developed, and with great success.

With the inflow of foreign capital, now begun in earnest, those best qualified to judge predict for Oregon a very high place among the gold and silver producing States of the Union.

The mineral district in Grant and Baker Counties will be shortly rendered accessible and profitable by the expected completion, both of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company's line and of that of the Oregon Pacific, having eastward connections at Boise City in Idaho, some fifty miles eastward of the eastern boundary of Oregon.

The timber of Oregon is of world-wide fame. It will take many years to exhaust the districts even now accessible to river, railroad, or harbor; and the opening up of the various portions of the State to be traversed by the railroads either now or shortly to be put in hand will bring to market the timber from hundreds of square miles of woodland yet untouched.

The following general statement is chiefly extracted from the "Report of the Government Commissioner of Agriculture" for the year 1875:

Baker County has a timber area of five hundred square miles, princ.i.p.ally pine and fir. Benton County has a belt of timber-land of one eighth of a mile wide by forty-five miles in length, lying along the Willamette River, and another belt in the Coast Mountains of twenty-five by thirty miles.

This timber is princ.i.p.ally pine and fir; there are also large quant.i.ties of splendid spruce; alder and white-oak, laurel and maple are also found. Alder grows from twenty-four to thirty inches in diameter, and is worth for cabinet-making purposes from thirty to forty dollars a thousand feet at the factory. There is a belt princ.i.p.ally of spruce timber, a mile wide and how many miles long I can not say, heading northward from Depot Slough, a stream running into Yaquina Bay, many of the trees being eight and nine feet in diameter, and two hundred and fifty feet high.

I have seen a hundred and thirty pines cut for s.h.i.+ps' spars on one homestead near Yaquina Bay, not one of which snapped in the felling, and which ran from eighty to one hundred and twenty feet in the clear, without a branch, and about as straight and level as a ruler. And this lot were cut from but a very few acres of the wood, and where it was easy to convey them to the tidal stream which floated them to the harbor. It was a pretty sight to watch the team of five or six yokes of oxen hauling the long, white spars from the wooded knoll on which they grew--the red and white colors of the oxen and the voices of the teamsters and lumbermen lending life and cheerfulness to the somber forest.

[Sidenote: _TIMBER._]

Clackamas is one of the best timbered counties in the Willamette Valley, fully one half of its area being in heavy timber. Pine, fir, spruce, white cedar, white oak, maple, and ash are found. About two thirds of the area of Curry County is covered with forests of yellow, red, and white fir, sugar-pine, white cedar, spruce, white and other oaks, and madrono. The timber-lands of Douglas are princ.i.p.ally covered with the different varieties of evergreens and oaks. There are thousands of acres which would yield from three to six hundred cords to the acre not yet taken up. Not over one third of the area of Lane County is woodland. This embraces the different varieties common to the Pacific coast.

The timber-land of Linn, occupying half its area, is comprised in three belts of dense forest, half of which is red fir. Within the last twenty-four years thousands of acres of woodland have grown up from seed, and are now covered with trees from forty to eighty feet high, with a diameter of from ten inches to two feet. There have been made from one acre of fir-timber six thousand rails ten feet long by at least four inches thick.

Multnomah has a large area of timber-land, mostly yellow and red fir.

Three fourths of the area of Tillamook is in timber, and half of this is fir and hemlock. The forests of Umatilla are confined to the mountains, where they are very dense, and to the belts along the streams. Wasco has immense forests in the mountains, many of them as yet inaccessible. The general result is, that Oregon has in all 15,407,528 acres of woodlands out of a total area of 60,975,360 acres.

The timber on the average is worth now about four dollars per thousand cubic feet at the saw-mill in the log, and costs when sawed into inch lumber about eight dollars the thousand feet of such lumber. The price of the lumber to the consumer varies from nine to fourteen dollars per thousand feet, according to the demand. Much of the fir and spruce timber will cut into six or seven logs of sixteen feet in length, the tree being six feet in diameter two feet from the ground.

From one cut out of a fallen fir on my own land we split one hundred and thirty-two rails of fully four inches diameter, and from several trees over six hundred rails each have been split.

A good deal of unauthorized timber-cutting goes on upon the Government land not yet taken up. When the logger is honest, he buys the right to cut from the owner of the land, paying "stumpage" of about fifty cents a tree. I have known many acres to provide over fifty of these big trees, thus returning a good price for the timber, and leaving rich and partly cleared land for pasturing purposes in the hands of the owner.

One of the industries that needs to be established in many parts of the State is tanning. Hides are plentiful, and of excellent quality; bark, both of oak and of hemlock, is easily procurable, and the water-power is abundant almost everywhere. At present the leather used is chiefly imported from California; it has been hastily tanned, and is of poor quality. The drawback to this business is that it absorbs capital before it begins to yield profit; but, the machine once having begun to revolve, the returns are steady, the risks few, the results permanent, and the profits very considerable.

[Sidenote: _WOOLEN-MILLS._]

The woolen manufacture in Oregon has already taken good hold. Oregon goods are well known in California, and in Philadelphia and New York also. They received well-deserved praise at the Centennial Exhibition of 1876. There are three woolen-factories in the State: one at Oregon City, one at Brownsville, and one at Ashland, in the south of the State. Their blankets and tweeds are admirable for thickness, solidity, and softness of texture. The Oregon City mills employ a good many Chinamen; they work well and economically. There is every probability of a fourth factory being at once established in or near Albany; and the more the better, considering the ample water-power, and the abundance and excellence of fleeces.

Taking into account the quality of the flax grown in the State and the indefinite power of expansion of the product, seeing that the very edge of the flax-land has hardly yet been touched, while many thousand acres are specially fit for the crop, and considering, also, that linen in its various forms is unnaturally dear on the Pacific coast, it seems a pity that one or more linen-factories should not be established. The present disturbed state of Ireland has, we know, prepared many of its inhabitants for emigration, and among them are many trained in the growth, the preparation, and the manufacture of flax. Any persons familiar with this industry could not do better than transfer themselves, their capital, their machinery, and their staff of workers, to this free land; here they will find a hearty welcome, a fine climate, the very best of raw material, a market at their doors, unlimited opening for expansion of their business, and a habitation free alike from turbulence, riot, and oppression.

No book attempting to deal, in however general terms, with the industrial development of Oregon, can pa.s.s the business in canned salmon without notice.