Copyright 1999 - 2003 - Janine M. Bork
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Union County, OR AHGP
as good quality, with hardly a drop of rain from the planting, then you can get on the apparently richer lad of Illinois or Kansas, with their weekly soak. The fact seems to be that the wonderful fertility of the Columbia "Desert" is due more to the mineral elements of the soil than to the vegetable mould. These mineral elements are found in about the same proportion throughout.
Besides this great Blue Mountain belt which extends from the John Day river in a vast quadrant two hundred miles in length to the Snake river boundary of Assotin and Garfield counties, in which the conditions of prices and settlement and business are essentially the same, we should speak especially of the two other settled sections of the basin, the Yakima and the Palouse countries. As already noted, the Yakima country is not a uniform, rolling prairie, like the other parts of the upper country. It consists of a number of narrow valleys, separated by hills, treeless and somewhat barren and rocky. The valleys are of amazing fertility, and are usually perfectly level, varying in width from the twenty miles of the Simcoe (which is, however, mainly occupied by the Indian Reservation), to a mile or so, as in the case with the Atahnam, Cowechee and most of the others. Through all of these course swift and beautiful streams from the snowy heights of the Cascades. The climate is decidedly drier than in the other parts of the basin; and hence these streams have been employed for irrigating. These peculiarities of the Yakima country (with which we include the large and beautiful valley of the Kittitass, since the conditions there are the same) give it a peculiar adaptability to fruit and garden culture, and to dairying. The Yakima valley will be the "truck" farm of the Columbia basin. In anticipation of this natural destiny, the rich spots along the creeks near the largest towns, as Ellensburg and North Yakima, have risen greatly in price, so that farming land near market is probably higher in those places than in the Blue Mountain belt. Aside, however, from the places close to market, prices are still very reasonable, and the inducements to settlers great. Good farms within ten miles of Ellensburg or Yakima (not possessing some very marked advantage for "trucking") can be purchased for from twenty-five to forty dollars per acre. Unimproved lands bring from four or five dollars up according to location. Much the same may be said of the Klikitat country as of the Yakima. Irrigation is not practicable there, nor is it usually needed; for there is ordinarily a good rainfall. In the mountain and foothill belt between the Klikitat and Yakima, there are many choice spots yet open to free entry.
In the Palouse and Spokane country (for they are practically one), prices are still low, lower, probably, considering their advantages, than anywhere else in the Pacific Northwest. Every advantage possible to the farmer exists on these myriad hills. They are fertile, have plenty of wood and water, abundant transportation resources, and, in the city of Spokane, a great and growing market near at home. Still the country is so new that improvements are yet very crude; and the great area of government land in the Big Bend adjoining has drawn the crowds, so that prices have not yet gone up to their normal height. Good farms throughout this region, near the growing towns, such as Colfax, Farmington, Oaksdale, Spangle, Moscow, etc., can be purchased at from eight to twenty-five dollars per acre. Unimproved land generally brings about one thousand dollars per quarter section. Though possessing a more rigorous climate than the Walla Walla and Yakima countries, the Palouse and Spokane prairies are of more unvarying fertility, and have a considerably larger rainfall.
Such are some of the salient features in the present condition of the agricultural phase of the industries of the great middle belt of the Pacific Northwest. Let us now address ourselves to the third grand division, the eastern.
This is the Upper Snake basin. As already noted, it bears the same relation to the Columbia basin that the latter does to the Willamette valley and the accompanying regions. Before fairly entering upon the great plains of the Snake, we find in the very midst of the Blue Mountains a very important addition to the farming resources of Oregon in the three valleys of the Grand Ronde, the Wallowa and the Powder river. These valleys have most of their characteristics in common, and together constitute the most attractive and well-developed portion of the eastern belt. All three have lofty and precipitous mountain boundaries, are very elevated (over three thousand feet on an average), have a rigorous winter climate, an exceedingly fertile soil adapted to irrigating, which is a desirable though not absolutely a necessary thing.
Of these three valleys the Wallowa is the largest, being about thirty by twenty-five miles in extent. It is almost entirely new, few farms having yet been proved upon; and hence there has not yet been established a regular standard of land values. Though so elevated as to be liable to late frosts, and having very heavy snows, the Wallowa is remarkably well adapted to dairying. The grass on the foothills remains green all summer; and cows give cream instead of milk. Enormous yields of wheat are produced, though, on account of lack of transportation, the acreage is small as yet.
The Grande Ronde valley has been long settled, and is one of the most beautiful regions of the Pacific Northwest. It is a little less in size than the Wallowa, being about twenty-five by eighteen miles in extent. Being less elevated than the other, it is not affected by late frosts, and has excellent fruit facilities. Land in the Grande Ronde valley is about the same in price as in the Walla Walla valley.
The Powder river valley, just
south of the Grande Ronde, and mostly embraced within the limits of Baker
county, is still a trifle smaller than the latter, being about twenty by
sixteen miles. It is still drier than the others, insomuch that irrigation
is nearly a necessity. The soil is very rich and productive; and the climate,
though cold in winter and hot in summer is healthful. From one standpoint
the farmer of the Powder river country has a great advantage over him of
the more extensive Columbia basin, i.e., the vast mineral wealth
of Baker and Union counties is going to create an unrivaled home market
for the comparatively small number of farmers. It may be readily believed
that the farmer of this region may
make more money than his larger neighbor of the greater and otherwise better region below. Prices of land in the Powder river valley are still very reasonable, being about the same as that of the Grande Ronde. One other point is worth adding, and that is, that in the beautiful, grassy and fertile foothills of the Blue mountains about these valleys, and indeed on all sides, there are many places where choice government land may be located. Happy thousands will yet be located on these fair lands. Though somewhat high and cold as compared with the warmth of Umatilla or Yakima, these Blue Mountain foothills are warmer in winter and cooler in summer, and pleasanter at all times, than New England or New York, having indeed much such a temperature as Pennsylvania and West Virginia.
The imagination is staggered in trying to conceive what this country will be when it is, as it surely will be, settled throughout these now unoccupied and almost unknown valleys and plateaus. One thing is sure, the man who gets in there now and takes his pick will be glad ten years from now. He may have to deny himself and be somewhat isolated for a few years; but the time of his deliverance will not be far off. The Blue Mountain plateau will soon be interlaced with railroads. Its resources of minerals, precious metals, timber, stock and agriculture will not much longer be concealed from the world.
And now what can be said from the farmer's standpoint of the vast upper valley of the Snake? Not much as to its present; very much as to its future. Aside from the one small and exceedingly fertile valley of the Boise, there is almost no agriculture in Southern Idaho. Here is a prairie one hundred miles by two hundred and fifty long, most of it nearly as level as Illinois, and much of it having the same kind of soil as the forty-bushel land of Walla Walla. Why is it unsettled and unplowed? The answer is brief: No rain. But can it not be irrigated? The answer to this is longer, but is a decided affirmative: It can and soon will be; and, when it is, there will be a flocking to the plains of Southern Idaho at a rate which will make the shaggy and sullen old Snake river hold its breath. We find nothing so well suited to our purpose for a clear presentation of this vitally important subject as the report of United States Surveyor-General Straughan, of Idaho. We give it here.
Surveyor-General Joseph C. Straughan of Idaho has completed his investigation of the matter of bringing into cultivation several million acres of arid land in our territory by irrigation, and has forwarded his report to the Secretary of the Interior. The document is elaborate, comprehensively written and will prove of much interest to our citizens, as well as those intending to become settlers. The following is a condensed report of Mr. Straughan's investigations:
"Idaho as yet needs no reservoir storage of water. Her immense uplands are stored with snow, from which source of supply water is let on by the warm sunshine just when the farmer needs it. The volume of Snake river at the initial points for the canals, near Eagle Rock, Bingham county, has never been gauged at flood time; but it is much greater than that of the great Ganges canal of India, and more than can ever be needed for irrigation alone. Boise river has been gauged with tolerable accuracy by A.D. Foote, an engineer of education and experience, through a period of four years, who reports an average of nearly sixteen thousand cubic feet per second during the months of April, May and June and the catchment basin of this river Mr. Foote estimates at 1,600,000 acres. The catchment basin of Snake river above Eagle Rock, which extends from the Salmon-river divide on the west to the Teton range in Wyoming, - Grand Teton peak being twelve miles and eight chains east from the Idaho line, - I estimate to be about 3,000,000 acres, or double that of the Boise river.
"The duty of water for irrigation varies from eighty to two hundred acres to one cubic foot of water per second, as estimated in this country. From this data it would seem possible to supply 3,000,000 of acres of farming land from the waters of Snake river taken out near Eagle Rock; and from such point, say from Market Lake, which has a natural inlet from the river, I have projected a line of canal along the foothills on the north side of the valley at its intersection with Boise river, two hundred and eighty miles in length and covering 2,750,000 acres, as is shown on the map submitted in connection with this report. I think it unquestionable that we have on said side of Snake river 2,750,000 acres of good, irrigable valley land; that we have abundant water to irrigate it; that a canal for this purpose is quite feasible, and at a cost immensely below the enhancement to the value of the lands lying under it, or below its horizon. For the canal on the southeast side I have projected a line as run by Mr. Riblett, mining and civil engineer, at the instance of settlers of Cassia and Owyhee counties. This line taps the south branch of Snake river as it issues from the mountain gorge, about eighteen miles east from Eagle Rock, where the water may easily be diverted; thence along the foothills on that side of the valley to its intersection with the Owyhee river valley and the state line of Oregon. This line, with its detours at the tributary valleys of Blackfoot, Port Neuf, Raft and other rivers, I estimate at three hundred miles, and is reported by Mr. Riblett to be without expensive obstacles or serious engineering problems of any kind.
"I respectfully recommend that a large apportionment be assigned to this district from the appropriation for the next fiscal year 'for the purpose of investigating the extent to which the arid region of the United States can be redeemed by irrigation.'
JOSEPH C. STRAUGHAN,
"U.S. Surveyor-General for Idaho."
The possibilities of agriculture
in Southern Idaho unfolded by this report are such that the time is not
far hence when Idaho will be a good third to Oregon and Washington in the
products of the farm, and may even equal them. There is a larger area of
level and unbroken land to be reached
here and brought under one general system of culture than anywhere else on the Pacific Coast. The fact, too, of the vast and undeveloped mineral resources of Idaho, as in the Wood river ad Coeur d'Alene mines, gives a hint of the value which farming lands will have, in view of the great home market.
Such must serve for our bird's-eye glance at this greatest of the industries of the Pacific Northwest. For details we must refer readers to the local newspapers of the various regions. These are active and in general reliable. One thing needs to be kept constantly before the mind of the student of this country, and that is its great size and the great variety of soils, climates, locations, etc., to choose from.
To settlers we say, be not hasty in establishing yourselves. Take time to consider circumstances. Get what you want, even if you have to spend more time and money in doing it. Empires are now built in a day. Your isolation of the present will be relived to-morrow by a town breaking through the sod, while next week a fully equipped railroad will sprout from the prairies or issue full-grown from the woods. The farmer of this great section of the union does not generally wish to change with any other.
TIMBER RESOURCES.
Timber is a source of natural wealth of such value and so hard to secure by cultivation in any reasonable length of time that the country blessed with it naturally is thereby placed far in the front in the race for prosperity. Oregon, Washington and Idaho have wealth in this respect equal to that of nearly all the rest of the United States combined. As a perennial crop, we may justly assert that our timber constitutes a resource for industry and a means of creating wealth superior to either our mines or fields. This may at first sight seem an extravagant statement: but, when we come to look at the figures in the case, we shall find it not an unreasonable assertion. Glance at your map a moment and contemplate the timber area. There are eighty thousand square miles of forest land in the Pacific Northwest. But suppose we consider only half of this to be available. Suppose we consider each acre of this forty thousand square miles to be able to produce twenty thousand feet. This would be equivalent to twelve million, eight hundred thousand to the square mile, or, for the total area, five hundred and twelve billion feet. If we suppose its average value to be five dollars per thousand feet, it would be worth a total of two billion, five hundred and sixty million dollars. This would seem a safe estimate, when we consider that many single acres in fine timber would reach ten or even fifteen times what we have estimated as the average. In some instances, single trees have yielded fifty thousand feet. See how this compares with the gold product of California. That has during the past forty years averaged nearly thirty million dollar annually. But, as compared with the potential income of our Northwestern forests, it would require eighty-five years to reach it. And then in the availability of the land afterwards for other purposes, there would be no comparison. Indeed our forests might thus be estimated to yield twenty-five million six hundred thousand dollars a year for a hundred years; and, at the end of that time, the slender saplings of to-day, which spring up with such amazing rapidity on the site of old clearings, would be forest giants ready for the lumberman of the last years of the twentieth century. Our forests have then a reproducing power and a perennial value not possessed by the mines. Moreover, as population increases and the struggle for existence become fiercer with oncoming years, the relative value of our Northwestern timber resources will be greatly multiplied. The timber resources of the Atlantic and Lake states will be practically exhausted within another decade; and here will be the only great supply.
It is greatly to be hoped that our mountain timber belts may be held up by legislative action as a permanent reserve. They should be guarded from fires, and given a chance to recuperate after having been cut over. Nor should the people of our country ever forget what many of them do, to wit, the effect of forests in equalizing climates and rainfall, and in controlling the descent of water on the mountain side, and the consequent freshets or exhaustion of the streams. Judgment must be substituted for the reckless greed which would tear the protecting blanket of the woods from the surface of our mountains. Let the far-seeing legislator - if he can be found - provide for the renewal and preservation of our priceless treasure of forests; and let us not repeat on a gigantic scale the policy of the woman who killed her goose that laid the golden egg. Agriculture, grazing, fruit-raising, mining, the water-power of our streams, the navigation of our rivers, and even the productiveness of our fisheries, to say nothing of the beauty and benignity of our climate, are all more or less dependent on the preservation of our forests. With these general reflections, let us now consider the location, kinds, character and availability of our trees.
FOREST AREAS.
In a general way the entire region
lying between the ocean and the eastern flanks of the Cascade Mountains
is a forest, with some large exceptions to be noted. In like manner the
entire region between the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains and the
Rocky Mountains is destitute of timber, with certain exceptions to be noted.
Let us consider the subdivisions of these general areas separately: First,
the Coast Range of Mountains, extending from the Strait of Fuca to the
California line, four hundred and eighty-five miles long and forty miles
wide, is absolutely one solid forest. There are no natural prairies in
this whole great expanse, embracing nineteen thousand, four hundred square
miles. But that part of it lying in the
middle portion of Oregon and extending southward has been terribly scourged by fire. Probably two-thirds of the region of the Coast Mountains from Yaquina Bay southward has simply a covering of ghastly stubs. Upon these vast deadenings, ruined for the present, new forests are, however, rapidly springing up. The destruction between Yaquina Bay and the Columbia river, though not so great, is very large. It is still less north of the Columbia. The parts of the Coast Range not thus devastated by fire contain timber of the finest kind, - the "scrub" kind, and the knotty, stubby trees, of which there are many in the lower regions, not appearing here.
Next to the Coast Mountain section lies a belt of the same length, and probably sixty miles in average width. This may be called the region of the cross ranges and valleys. There are, at somewhat regular intervals, ranges which cross the country from east to west, interlocking the Cascade and the Coast Ranges. Between these ranges lie our great valleys. The Siskiyou is the southern most. Then come the various broken ridges, which may be comprehended under the general name of the Umpqua Mountains, with the Rogue river valley lying between. Then come the Calapooia Mountains, which separate the Willamette valley from the Umpqua. In the region of the Columbia the cross ranges are not so well defined; but there are several ridges bounding the Cowlitz, Lewis river, Chehalis and other valleys. Now all these cross ranges, and to some extent, especially in the north, the valleys themselves, are densely clothed with the finest of forests. The valleys, especially those of the Rogue river and the Upper Willamette, are entirely prairie and withdraw large areas of the timber of this section. It should be remembered, too, that much of the timber of the valleys is scrubby and fit for wood only. But making all reasonable deductions for this, together with the destruction by fire, - which has not been so great as in the Coast Mountains, - we have left an immense area of timber land of fine quality.
Western Washington may be, indeed, said to be almost one solid mass of timber, valleys and all, the few gravelly prairies to the southeast of the Sound probably not constituting a twentieth of the total area. Here in Western Washington are probably twenty-five thousand square miles of forest, of which a large fraction is available; and the trees are of giant growth. The world contains no other such timber area as this.
And now we come to the third great timber belt, that of the Cascade Mountains. Like the others, it extends from the California line to British Columbia, nearly five hundred miles, and probably averages sixty miles in width, including the foothills on either side. This range is substantially one forest, except in those frequent points where its sky-piercing heights reach the zone of perpetual congelation, and the forests cease. There are occasional natural parks of great beauty, which are treeless, and some areas of volcanic desolation where nothing grows. Fire, too, has played its destructive havoc in these shady solitudes, though not tot he same degree as in the Coast range. The result of our inquiries, then, into the region between the eastern flanks of the Cascade Mountains and the ocean is that forest land very largely predominates in the area, four hundred and eighty-five by one hundred and sixty miles in extent, and that, though immense deductions are to be made, there is still an empire of trees waiting for the enterprise of lumbermen.
Eastern Oregon is entirely destitute of forests, except upon the higher parts of the Blue Mountains. This bold and irregular range, whose picturesque spurs face all points of the compass, supports probably four thousand square miles of moderately large and available timber.
Eastern Washington has a very fine timber belt extending from the flanks of the Peshastin Mountains to Lake Chelan, and thence to the Okanagan. This region is almost entirely undeveloped; but it is said that the trees are of fine quality, and, as is usually the case in the dry eastern section of our empire, free from undergrowth. This section is at least two thousand square miles in extent. In Northeastern Washington and Northern Idaho is the great Coeur d'Alene timber belt, the largest anywhere east of the Cascade Mountains. it embraces probably not less than fifteen thousand square miles. The timber, while not so large as that of the coast, is of excellent quality and has not been so much scourged by fire.
One thing is to be remembered in regard to these great fire-stricken areas; i.e., they contain all the natural conditions of soil and climate necessary to sustain the forests. They have been thickly planted by nature with the flying seeds of vegetation; and already dense growths of young trees are beginning to veil the unsightly desolation of the deadenings. Nature is therefore making ready for the future. Within fifty years these nascent growths will be ready for ties. Within one hundred years they will be ready for lumber and shipmasts. Thus the land contains within itself the potency of self-renewal.
VARIETIES OF TIMBER.
Having presented in order the forest areas, we next consider the various species of timber in the order of their abundance, adding such accounts of their botanical peculiarities, habitats, qualities as lumber, etc., as we deem most worthy of preservation in this work. First in order of importance are the firs. The nomenclature of these forest monarchs, together with that of their brothers, the spruces, has been subject to so much change that we deem it best to give here an outline of the varieties of our trees, as given in Howell's latest catalogue. this will be of permanent value to the readers of this volume.
Firs. - Red and Yellow (Peseudo
Tsuga Douglassii); White fir (Abies Grandis); California White
Fire (Abies Concolor); Larch (Abies Nobilis); Lovely Fir
(Abies Armabilis); Sub-Alpine Fir (Sub-Alpina).
SPRUCES. - Four species: Picea Breweriana, Picea Litchensii, Picea Pungens, Picea Engelmanni. HEMLOCKS, - Two species: Tsuga Mertensiana, Tsuga Pattoniana. (The former of these is the coast, the latter the mountain species.) TAMARACK. - Larix Lyelli (Occidentalis). CEDARS. - Port Orford Cedar (Librocedrus Decurrens); Common Red Cedar (Thuja Gigantea); Mountain Cedar (Chamaecyparis Lawsoniana). CYPRESS. - Sypressos Macrobiana. JUNIPER. - Juniperus Communis, Juniperus Occidentalis, Juniperus Virginiana, Juniperus Sabina. PINES, - White Pine (Pinnus Monticola); Ridge Pine (Pinus Albicaulis); Black Pine (Pinus Contorta); Yellow Pine (Pinus Ponderosa); several less common species: Pinus Lambertiana, Pinus Colteri, Pinus Jeffreyi, Pinus Sabina, Pinus Tuberculata, Pinus Balfouriana. REDWOOD. - Sequoia Sempervirens. BIRCH. - Betula Occidentalis, Betula Glandulata. ALDER. - Four species. ASH. - Fraxinea Oregona (very valuable). CHITTIM-WOOD. - Four species. ASPEN. - Populus Tremuloides. COTTONWOOD. - Four species. OAKS. - Quercus. Of this grandest of deciduous trees there are six distinct species, the most common being known as the Black, White and Red. WILLOWS. - Salix. This pliant denizen of the damp lowlands surpasses all others in number of species, having no less than eighteen. MAPLE - This exceedingtly valuable tree is comprehended under two species: Large-leaved Maple (Acer Macrophyllum) and Vine Maple (Acer Circinatum).
Besides those more common and important species, there are the following of which we do not deem it necessary to give the botanical names, namely: Madrona, Serviceberry, Manzanita, Dogwood, Black Haw, Chincapin, Crab-Apple, Mountain Ash, Wild Cherry, Choke Cherry.
Let us now give a more particular description of some of the different kinds beginning with the Red and Yellow Firs. These constitute the staple of our forests. Their giant stature, often attaining a height of two hundred and fifty feet, and sometimes exceeding three hundred, their pliability and durability render them our most valued trees. Though spoken of as one tree, and having no fixed botanical differences sufficient to mark them, they are yet quite distinct to the eye of the woodsman, and have differences of habitat and fiber which anyone may recognize. The Red Fir inclines to grow on lowlands or the borders of the plains, and has a very white rind, making a strong contrast with the red heart. The bark is usually thin and dark. The grain consists of broad, hard, brittle layers, alternating with a soft pith. by reason of this peculiarity, the wood is easily split into long splinters, or even sheets.
The Yellow Fir is found on the higher knolls of the valleys and the skirts of the mountains, on all the foothills and lower plateaus. It grows in "continuous woods," having a social nature, and developing after a patriarchal fashion, i.e., a huge forest monarch, centuries old, with ranks of offspring thick about it. These mighty patriarchs are shaggy-barked and wide-spreading, in many cases having a short stock, six to eight or even twelve feet in diameter, which, at an elevation of forty or fifty feet, shoots out monstrous branches, drooping low and heavy with swaying moss, the very beau-ideal of vegetable grandeur. The trunk, still rising above this circlet of huge branches, is thickly studded with limbs, and at the top spreads out again into a leafy corona. The enormous roots, spreading in all directions, and frequently extending a hundred feet from the tree, sustain even that colossal mass against any violence short of a hurricane. Around these lone relics of four centuries ago, their grandchildren, of almost equal height, but exceedingtly slender, - sometimes being three hundred feet high and only three feet thick, and limbless to within fifty feet of their tops, - sway back and forth in the light gale till one thinks they will inevitably topple over. The "sounding aisles" of one of our great Yellow Fir forests are unmatched on earth for beauty and grandeur.
One of these great forests stands like a phalanx, each one supporting its fellows. Their enemy is the wind. The few big, stubby patriarchs break its initial onset, while the slender ones let it slip over them, bowing their feathery tops like reeds before the blast, so that it slides past with no hold. But once let the old wind-fighters on the outer edge of the phalanx be vanquished, and let the tempest get a "pry" underneath, and then those slender shafts, graceful as the fluted columns of a Corinthian temple, topple over like a field of ripe grain. These typical slender firs, which are the true lumber trees, grow best on the lee side of the hills, rooted in the deep, rich soil of centuries of decaying vegetation, or else they gather confidingly around their patriarchal ancestors. Straight as arrows, without a limb for two hundred feet, the tufts of branches above interlocking from tree to tree, so that they form a roof of foliage of which each trunk is a pilaster, the sun so shut out as never to penetrate the shady recesses, the trees so dense as in the distance to look like a solid wall of stems, floored with moss knee deep, the gloom brightened here and there by gorgeous red and yellow flowering shrubs, such as the wild currant, which loves the shade, or perhaps sweet with the amber or scarlet or jetty berries which in autumn provide feasts for birds and bears, - these are specimens of "God's first temple" which must be seem to be fully appreciated.
For general purposes, Oregon
Yellow Fir hs no superior. It combines lightness and elasticity with strength
and durability in better measure than any known wood. It is hence peculiarly
suited to ship-spars, ties, bridge timbers, etc. Its weight is but half
that of oak, while its tensile strength is equal to it. Its chief defects
are its shrinking and swelling when exposed to the weather, its rapid decay
- about seven years - when set into the ground, and its habit of exuding
pitch after it has been dried. The finest Yellow Fir is found along the
Sound, especially on the rugged lands adjoining Hood's Canal, and on the
Coast Mountain bordering Tillamook Bay. On the northern flanks of Mount
Hood, however, and on the plateaus bordering the Lewis river valley in
Clark county, Washington, are forests which might well challenge comparison
with any. The pitch of the Yellow Fir (which injures its finishing qualities
as well as by inviting fire) has made itself subject to enormous devastation,
but is in itself a source of immense future wealth, enough to recompense
the injury of which it is the occasion.
It affords the best of resins, tar and turpentine; and by proper kilns, wood alcohol, useful in the arts, may be secured.
The Grandis, or White Fir, grows along the river bottoms and other damp lands. It is very stately and beautiful, with smooth white stem and glistening spicules. The pose of this tree is so solemn, its symmetry so perfect, and its shadows so deep, its whole ensemble indeed so majestic, - that Grandis seems the natural name. Its lumber value is, however, small. It decays quickly. It is exceedingly light, and the wood is apt to warp and splinter. Its habitat is the damper and lower land throughout our entire forest area, though it does not appear in any quantity east of the Cascades.
The Nobilis, or Noble Fir, is commonly but incorrectly called Larch. Its habitats are the highlands, especially the westward flanks of the Coast Mountains, though it is found quite extensively in the Cascades and other regions. Vast forests of this wood are found about the headwaters of the Nehalem, Trask, Wilson, Nestucca and other rivers flowing from the crest of the Coast Mountains to the sea. They have suffered less from fire than any others. The Noble Fir or Larch is a worthy rival of the Yellow Fir in beauty and utility. The stems are as straight and elegant as rods of steel, symmetrical, smooth, and tampering with perfect geometrical regularity to the very tip. The wood is of the finest quality, soft, white, of uniform texture, receiving a polish almost equal to Black Walnut. The grain is so true that a splinter was once found sixty feet long taken from a tree split by lightning, and which was so narrow and thin as to be easily coiled up like a piece of tape. This timber is regarded with great interest by millmen as the coming timber; but as yet, owing to its comparative inaccessibility, it has been almost untouched by the saw.
The Abies Amabalis, or Lovely Fir, is found high up on the sides of the Cascade Mountains. It is comparatively small, and possessed of great beauty.
The Abies Sub-Alpina, or Sub-Alpine Fir, grows at greater altitudes than any other tree except the Ridge Pine. In its native haunt, at an altitude of about six thousand feet, about the bases of the mighty snow-peaks of the Cascade Mountains, it reaches a height of about seventy-five feet. It is a perfect spire, the beau-ideal of a mountain tree. It can nowhere be seen in greater perfection than in the enchanted meadows which encircle Mount Adams. There, at the border of the eternal frost, it stands in its unmatched shapeliness, as the last good-bye of the realms of the vegetable world. On the uppermost ridges, where the tempests sweep with wintry fury century after century, these trees cling with undying pertinacity; but they are trees in miniature. Frequently those a hundred years old of perfect form and maturity are found only six or eight feet high.
But we must beware lest we devote a disproportionate amount of attention to the firs, important though they are. We must pass on to the spruces.
The White Spruce is even more burly than the firs, but not usually so tall. It grows from an enormous butt, formed of monstrous contorted roots rising sometimes ten feet above the ground. The trunk, when fairly clear of the roots, is round and smooth, with thin, scaly bark, rising two-thirds of its height without branches, then throwing out huge lateral limbs. The powerful rooting of these trees seldom permits the wind to overthrow them; and, for this reason, they may be found in the most exposed places on the seashore. The spicules are so stiff and sharp as to pierce the skin like thorns, and hence to forbid any free handling. The wood is not so resinous as that of the fir, though there is much pitch in the spicules and in the knots. The branches are so hard and heavy as to sink almost like iron. The wood is soft and uniform in texture, and has a corky character not found in any of our other trees. It is riven with special ease, often making split boards a foot wide and ten or twelve feet long. It is therefore sought for "Shakes" and puncheons. It is prized for box lumber and laths. The wood often has a pinkish tint and a satin-like smoothness of surface which are very pretty. It has still another use for which it will ultimately be greatly sought. It is peculiarly adapted for the manufacture of wood pulp for paper. There is a pulp-mill at Young's Falls, near Astoria, which utilizes the spruce thereabouts. The habitat of this tree is more restricted than that of the fir, being mainly the coast region on either side of the mouth of the Columbia. In the rich valleys opening to the sea, it sometimes reaches enormous proportions. The writer has seen one fifteen feet in diameter and there are authentic accounts of one on Young's river seventeen feet in diameter.
The Hemlock, as we have seen, is of two varieties, commonly distinguished as White and Black. Compared with the gigantic stature of the firs and spruces, the hemlock is small, seldom exceeding four feet in diameter or two hundred feet in height. It grows in very dense forests, so thick and straight as to resemble standing grain. The foliage is soft and pliant; and the branches have a habit of forming clumps near the ends from which sprout a multiplicity of small twigs. There is no shade darker than that of a hemlock forest on some one of the humid slopes seaward of the lands about the mouth of the Columbia. They are frequently draped with "Druidical moss," which sometimes, in the damp valleys of the coast, acquires astonishing length. The wood of the hemlock is white, and when dried has a peculiarly hard, glazed surface. It is remarkably well adapted to box stuff, flooring and fencing. It yields much paper pulp. The bark is also rich in tannin. Its habitat is about the same as that of the spruce, though it is also found in small quantities in the Cascade and Blue Mountains.
But we must not crowd the pines
from this brief panoramic vision of our forest wonders and treasures. The
Pacific northwest has an abundance of these, the Yellow or Pitch Pine (Pinus
Ponderosa) forming the great bulk. It is a stocky tree from one hundred
and fifty feet high, having as clay bark of a yellow hue. The wood is solid,
though not very hard, is substantial, and very resinous. The
pitch is not very noticeable, however, unless in case of cuts or wind-twists, in which it exudes in enormous quantities. The pine grows on dry and barren ridges. There is a singular belt running a due north and south line through almost the entire length of the Willamette valley, and only a few miles in width. Its chief habitats, however, are the rocky ridges of Southern Oregon, and the eastern flanks of the Cascades. The tree is commonly called "Bull Pine" in Eastern Oregon. There is much of it about Hood river and the White Salmon below The Dalles. It is the common tree about Spokane, Moscow and on the western flanks of the Blue Mountains. In extent of range, indeed, it ranks second only to the Yellow Fir. Though often knotty and scrubby, it furnishes much fine lumber. Selected boards can be found which make furniture of great beauty. It takes a fine polish.
The Black Pine is small and comparatively unimportant. Its habitats are the bases of the great snow-peaks of the Cascade and Blue Mountains.
The Ridge Pine is not important as lumber, but is peculiarly interesting from its habit of growing at the greatest elevation of any tree in all our land. Its habitats are the storm-torn and glacier-ground desolations about the snow-line of Adams, Hood, Ranier and other Titan peaks of the Cascades. The cone contains a fine nut much prized by Indians and birds. Clinging to its narrow and desolate foothold, looking far down on the glaciers and shaded snow-banks, this tree becomes so dwarfed that centuries of age are represented by but a dozen or twenty feet of growth. Sometimes it maintains its life in situations so swept by the hurricane fury of its inhospitable home that it cannot stand upright, but creeps along the ground in the line of the wind. Though so interesting and picturesque a tree,, it has no commercial value.
The Mountain Pine, frequently called "White Pine," is very similar to the true White Pine of the East. It is a graceful tree, with feathery top, and soft, pliant wood. it is for the most part not easily accessible. Great forests are known in the Pen d'Oreille and Coeur d'Alene Mountains. The north flank of Mount Hood bears great quantities. Reports are made of similar groves on the sides of Mounts St. Helens, Adams and Ranier. There is also a fine growth of it on the crest of the Coast Mountains, twenty miles west of Forest Grove, around "Devil's Lake" and the headwaters of Wilson river. There is still a little question whether this is indeed just the same as the White Pine of Maine; but lumbermen who have examined it do not hesitate to describe it as of equal excellence. It is undoubtedly one of the finest of the undeveloped timber resources of the Pacific Northwest. A vast fortune awaits the men who shall have the enterprise to reach its remote retreats and send it forth to the markets of the world. The writer has been informed by lumbermen that a thousand feet of it delivered in Portland would be worth fifty dollars. Besides the pines described, there are a few specimens of the "Jack Pine" on the dunes of the coast; and in Southern Oregon are scattered specimens of the "Big Cone Pine," the cones of which are sometimes sixteen inches in length.
Cedar is found throughout the forest areas west of the Cascade Mountains, and occasionally in the moister lands on the other side. The Port Orford Cedar is one of the most valuable of all our forest trees. exceedingly light, yet firm, it is eagerly sought for making boats, furniture, etc. It has the peculiarity of shrinking only lengthwise of the fibers. Its habitat, as denoted by the name, is the coast of Southern Oregon, though it is by no means unknown in the Cascade Mountains and on the coast of Washington. Coos Bay, may, however, be considered its chief emporium. The common Red Cedar is plentiful in every damp valley or cañon throughout the entire extent of the forest land of the Pacific Northwest. It is also found on many of the mountain ridges. It does not usually occur in distinct forests, but is rather scattered through other kinds of trees. It seems to be found in greater quantities in Clark county, Washington and other regions bordering on the Columbia, than elsewhere. Vast quantities are found, however, on the high ridges of the Coast Mountains, west of McMinnville. It sometimes attains a gigantic girth near the ground, - no less than eighteen feet in diameter having been reported, - but tapers rapidly, and in actual amount of wood by no means equals the fir and spruce. Its value for posts, doors, sash, etc., is so universally known as to hardly require mention. Suffice it to say that it is one of our indispensable trees. So widely distributed is it, though sparse, and so valuable do its lightness, firmness and beauty make it, that we can scarcely conceive its value to the country at large.
The cypress, the yew, the juniper, the tamarack, the redwood and the birch we need not speak of at so much length, since their quantity is so comparatively small. Tamarack is found in considerable quantities in the Blue Mountains, and is a valuable source of timber supply for the Inland Empire. Redwood is, of course, a very excellent timber tree, but is found only in the extreme southwestern corner of Oregon.
The Hard Woods. - The hard woods and nut-bearing trees are not largely enough found in the Pacific Northwest to be of any great commercial importance. Oak, ash and maple are, however, found in sufficient quantities to be of much value in their respective departments.
The oak, first by reason of its
arboreal majesty as well as by the extent of its distribution, is not generally
considered equal to its eastern cousin for lumbering purposes. It is brash,
and frequently "dozy," i.e., infected with dry-rot at the heart. The trunk
is usually very short, and spreads in huge gnarled branches, which add
more to beauty than to value. The White and Black Oaks, with some Red,
are the common trees of the Willamette, Umpqua and Rogue river valleys;
and so graceful have their centuries of growth placed them, and in such
baronial state do they stand in their park-like domains, that one might
almost think himself in an old English manor. There are great quantities
of oak at Hood river and White Salmon on the Columbia, but beyond that,
in the Inland Empire, it is practically unknown. The most easterly is said
to be at the Simcoe Reservation in the Yakima; and that is one of
the most beautiful of groves. Occasional large oaks can be found which furnish excellent boards for furniture, wagon-making, etc.; but the chief value of our oak timber (except as wood) is contained in the thick groves of "grub" oak which have sprung up since the country was settled, and since the autumnal prairie fires set by Indians have ceased to destroy all young tree growths. These oak grubs are extraordinarily tough, strong, elastic and hard, and are even superior to hickory for axehelves, wagon-wheel spokes, etc. Large industries in various lines of manufacture will yet be built up on these great forests of young oak.
Ash is found throughout the regions west of the Cascades, and, though somewhat more brittle and coarse-grained than the Eastern, makes beautiful furniture, and for this use is beginning to have great commercial value.
The maple is one of the most beautiful and rapidly growing trees of the Pacific Northwest; and the large-leaved species, found in moist lands throughout the entire forest area, is exceedingly valuable for furniture. The large furniture manufacturers of Portland depend chiefly on the ash and maple for their supplies, and claim that the latter is fully equal to its Eastern relative. Some species of Oregon "Bird's-eye" and "Curly" Maple reach the very acme of ligneous beauty.
The alder is also a very beautiful and interesting tree, an inhabitant of humid places, and sometimes attaining, especially in the valleys of the coast, a great stature. It sometimes occurs in thick groves of great beauty. It is soft and light, and as yet has not attained much commercial value.
Cottonwood is found along the river bottoms throughout the entire Pacific Northwest. It is perhaps the most widely distributed deciduous tree in the whole country, being often found along the creeks East of the Mountains where no other timber exists. it sometimes attains gigantic dimensions, - one hundred and fifty feet high, and five or six feet in diameter. It has no value as lumber, except for boxing or sugar barrels, and is even very poor for wood. Its sphere seems to be found, however, in furnishing a pulp for the manufacture of paper, and for excelsior. The paper mill at Lacamas on the Columbia depends largely upon it.
Of the almost innumerable lesser trees, as cherry, dogwood, etc. we cannot here speak. There is a curious tree in the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon, however, of which we cannot forbear to say a word. This is Mountain Mahogany. It takes a polish equal to the true mahogany, and is the finest-grained wood in our country. So rich and beautiful, so hard and heavy it is, that were the tree not so small in size, and its area so limited, it might reach a very high commercial value. Indeed, as it is, it will no doubt sometime be much sought for inlaid work, etc. The same is true of many of the woods of small size and limited quantity.
From this brief enumeration of our timber resources, we see that we have every wood for building, furnishing and ornamenting our homes, and for constructing and equipping railroads and steamboats. We ought, indeed, to name under the latter head the example of the steamer T.J. Potter of Portland, which is one of the finest specimens of boat architecture afloat, and was built exclusively of Oregon woods. Our timber, as it stands, and with its facilities for growth, ought to be depended on for a future income of fifty millions annually to the Pacific Northwest, for an indefinite number of years. With an intelligent and rigid supervision of our forests by a proper legislative commission, they ought to be renewed and maintained as long as the world stands. our people must learn one thing, however, and that is not to wantonly or carelessly set fire to these comparably valuable possessions. Something like a billion dollars worth has been burned already. Nevertheless such stupid indifference to matters of real public interest prevails, especially in Oregon, that no doubt hunters, campers, slashers, and reckless and thoughtless people generally, will continue to play havoc for many years to come.
But this lengthy article must draw near an end with a brief account of the existing facilities for handling and working up these well-nigh exhaustless timber resources. The lumber mills of the Pacific Northwest have been, in the nature of the case, mainly massed at the points where commerce most easily meets production. Therefore nearly all the great mills are on Puget Sound, the Columbia river and Coos Bay. within these last few years of railroad development, great establishments have sprung up in the Coeur d'alene and Pen d'Oreille belt. Besides these great mils, whose aim is to supply the foreign demand, almost every creek in the country has some little mill to satisfy the local trade.
One very important fact in the lumber trade has developed within the last two years, and that is the demand from the East. Hitherto the foreign market of our mills was either California or Australia, China and the Islands. Hence the ocean was the only route. But since the construction of the Northern Pacific Railroad and the Oregon Short Line, there has come a steadily increasing demand from Montana, Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska, and even as far east as Chicago. During the year 1889, shipments to the east from the vicinity of Portland averaged nearly four million feet per month. One mill in Portland saws exclusively for the Eastern trade, another about half. The income from this source to Oregon amounted to nearly half a million dollars last year. Puget Sound has probably not sent so much lumber East in proportion to her total output as has the Columbia; but in the aggregate it has been very great. It is reliably estimated that the shipments by rail from Washington Territory during the year 1888 were twenty-four million, two hundred and fifty thousand feet, while over a million lath and twenty-four million shingles were also shipped.
It would be impossible in the
space at our disposal to name all the mills of the Columbia or Puget Sound
sections. We can only say in general terms that they are immense in capacity,
and provided with all manner of the best machinery and appliances. The
Port Gamble mills can cut two hundred and fifty
thousand feet of lumber per day, and others nearly as much. The steadily increasing demand for lumber, and the increasing profits which the enlarging market brings, has led to the establishment of many new mills during the last year, and to the purchase of immense quantities of timber land from the government. It is believed that the available timber land is now pretty well "corralled." We need hardly add, however, that vast tracts yet remain in the mountain regions which will be sometime made accessible.
There are in the vicinity of Portland three large mills, of which the largest, "Weidler's," ranks with the mills of the Sound in capacity, having cut more than one hundred and eighty thousand feet in a day. There are on the Lower Columbia, at Mount St. Helens, Mount Ranier, and other points, Astoria being the chief, seven large mills. At the mouth of the Umpqua river there are two, while Coos bay boasts of six. The total cut of these various Oregon mills have been roughly estimated at over one hundred and fifty million feet during the year 1888. The mills of Puget Sound, however, vastly exceed those of Oregon in the amount of their output. C.L. White, of the Pacific Mill Company, made the following estimate of the cut of the districts named for the year ending September 30, 1888: Snohomish, one hundred million feet; Skagit, seventy-six million, five hundred thousand feet; Satsop R.R., forty-six million; Gray's Harbor R.R., forty million; Stillaguamish, forty million; King co., thirty-five million; Hood's Canal, twenty-five million; Blanchard R.R., sixteen million; North Bay, fifteen million; Olympia, eight million; Whidby Island, ten million; north of Point Wilson, eight million; Whatcom, fifteen million. This foots up the enormous total of four hundred and thirty-four million, five hundred thousand feet. It does not include, however, the output of numerous small mills. Governor Semple estimates the total output of the Washington Territory mills for the year of 1888 at one billion, forty-three million, five hundred and ninety-six thousand feet. It is thus safe to say that the lumber output of the ocean side of the Pacific Northwest exceeds a billion feet annually, - or a million thousand, - giving an income, if we average its value at five dollars per thousand (a low estimate), of over five millions of dollars.
The amount of the cut in the great Coeur d'Alene timber belt of Northern Idaho is not easily estimated. It may be said, however, that it has not yet produced much for export. Like the mills of the Blue Mountains, the interior of Southern Oregon and other comparatively new and isolated regions, it has kept up only with the local demand. This, however, in consequence of the great needs of railroad construction, is very large. The demands of the mining towns of the Coeur d'Alene, too, together with the immense demands of the city of Spokane, have taxed the local mills to the utmost, and, indeed, required large importations from the Sound and the Columbia.
Such is a résumé of the timber resources of the Pacific Northwest. We have endeavored to give a plain, unexaggerated statement within the bounds of the acknowledged truth. We do not desire to hide the facts that immense areas of our forest land have been wasted by fire, and that other great tracts are possessed by scrubby, knotty and useless timber. For these reasons we estimated the forest area of value at forty thousand square miles, though there is twice that amount of land bearing forests. We also estimated the average capability of each acre at but twenty thousand feet, though single trees are on record from which fifty thousand feet have been cut, while a good authority tells us of seeing five hundred thousand feet of yellow Fir cut on a single acre on the Toutle river in Washington; and it has been estimated that there are, within a radius of eight miles around the Columbia river mills of Skomokawa, Washington, not less than six hundred million feet of the finest Yellow Fir. But take the coolest, the most unfavorable view of our forests, make the largest possible allowances for burns and for scrubby timber, yet the assertion remains unchallenged that the pacific Northwest has no equal in the world in the extent and general quality of its timber resources. We may profitably close this chapter with a statement recently mae by one who is recognized as an authority on this subject, - Governor Russel Alger of Michigan. He says:
"Very few people appreciate the extent and superiority of the Washington Territory fir; and the only reason it is not now brought East is the necessarily high freight rates by rail. Some of it now finds its way to New York by vessel, but the voyage is a long one. For several years, appreciating the fact that the Michigan and Wisconsin pine lands were being exhausted, I have had my eyes open for new fields; and three years ago I visited this Washington region, making a personal examination of the field. I think I am a fair judge of timber; and I don't hesitate in pronouncing the product of those regions in every way superior to our northern pine, and other countries recognize the fact. While I was in Tacoma I saw nine vessels bound for England, Germany and China, loading at the wharves. At the present time it cannot be profitably carried east by rail. I have figured the matter with the roads touching that district, and it has been found impossible to carry the stuff two thousand miles at anything like a reasonable rate. If the Panama canal is ever built, an enormous lumber traffic by water will be sure to spring up; and it will come possibly just at the time we need it."
Governor Alger was asked when
he thought the present fields East would be exhausted. "In one way that
is hard to say. In Michigan, many owners have not good facilities for cutting
timer, while others are rapidly clearing the fields and moving to new ones;
but, judged by the output of last year, it cannot last more than eight
years. In Wisconsin I presume it is much the same."
LIVE STOCK INTERESTS.
CATTLE.
It is nothing very new or fresh to say that our cattle interests are extensive. It is estimated that the Pacific Northwest produces one hundred thousand beef hides each year. Considering that many of our cattle are exported alive and that the hides of those slaughtered are not all sold, this may be regarded as not more than half the number annually sent to market. At the low value of twenty-five dollars each, this represents a source of income about equal to each of the industries of grain-raising, wool-raising and the fisheries, and one-half that of our sawmills and coal mines. When dairy products are taken into consideration, our beef cattle and cows rise into very high importance. If the horns, bones, hoofs, hair and hides were kept in the state, and the tanning, manufacture of fertilizers, of leather, gelatine and neat's-foot oil carried on, the total value of our herds would be almost doubled.
This, however, represents our cattle industry only in its crudest beginnings. If we allow a hundred thousand square miles as the grazing area of the Columbia valley and North Pacific coast belt, - and this would leave about an equal area for agriculture, horticulture and fruit, - and supposing that besides sheep and horses this would support fifty cattle per square mile, we should be able to produce two million, five hundred thousand beef animals per year, worth - hides, horns and all - one hundred million dollars as an annual income. The dairy products should be as great. As a matter of fact, however, the land designated as agricultural, as distinguished from grazing, is best utilized even for grain by alteration with cattle; and the straw, offal of wheat, etc., would promote the production of and furnish nutriment for five million more such animals. And this number could be doubled by providing roots, clover, vetches, and corn or sorghum from the deep valley or table-land soils. On quite a considerable portion of our surface one acre is, by the mst improved methods, - root crops, etc., - sufficient to support two cows. These calculations, however, have no great value except to show the immense wealth that lies in our pastures.
The first cattle introduced into Oregon Territory were three animals sent by ship from England to Fort Vancouver, intended simply for the use of the chief factor and the gentlemen at the post, to supply milk, butter and cheese and veal betimes for the table. Doctor McLoughlin, however, cherished them as the apple of his eye, - killing only one calf a year, - and soon had a handsome herd. These were English Durhams, and furnished some of the best milch cows ever in the country. In 1841, Ewing Young brought up from California a band of Spanish cattle, - the tall, bony, fleet, long-limbed and dagger-horned stock, imported from the fierce herds of the land of "bull fights." Joseph Gale soon after brought another herd; and there were importations from time to time thereafter. These fierce-eyed animals of beastly savagery, which made the fields unsafe for women and children, and even made men on foot keep on the inside track for a tree, soon gave character to the herds of our young state, and until 1861 were the conspicuous type. In that year one-half or two-thirds of all the cattle perished from the severity of the season; and, of course, these wild creatures were allowed to suffer the most. As the immigrants came in from the East, they brought continually cows and stock animals, as well as oxen of the mixed American breeds; and for milking they were constantly given the preference, the Spanish stock, or animals showing Spanish traits, being gradually turned off for beef. This ugly and inferior breed has, therefore, almost wholly disappeared.
Within the last twenty years,
there have been constant importations of fine, pure bloods; and, from the
quite general use of breeding animals of these fine breeds, our herds are
rapidly improving. The Jerseys here, as elsewhere, are much sought by the
wealthy as milch cows in their city stables or at their villas. The beauty
and docility of these channel cattle, and the excellence of their milk
for butter, make them a favorite in all cases where elegance is required.
Ben Holladay was among the first to bring them to the state; and the herd
is still increasing on Clatsop Plains. Captain Thompson of Wasco county
has also made extensive importations, and has distributed his stock widely.
W.S. Ladd has a fine herd on his farm near East Portland. S.G. Reed, the
capitalist of Portland, has made a specialty of English Short Horns; and
from his farms in Yamhill and Washington counties has disseminated this
noble strain. Another handsome herd of Durhams belongs to Wm. MacEldowny
of Washington county. The Holsteins, sometimes described as the Dutch Short
Horn, notable not only for their massive barrels and immense muscles, but
exceedingly handsome for their silky hair and sharp black and white distribution
of color, are a much-sought breed and command a very high price. David
Stewart, formerly of Yamhill, now of Washington county, has been a large
importer of this variety, and himself has one of the finest herds in the
state. They flourish on this coast; and their milk and cheese and beef
producing qualities point to them as a very valuable addition, and perhaps
ultimately the prevailing type. Mr. Elliott, now of Oregon City, has imported
Devons; and a number of gentlemen of the Grand Ronde valley also own an
excellent herd of Holsteins. The Ayrshires are, however, somewhat cultivated,
and as a domestic family cow have few superiors. The Herefords are also
turned out largely on our ranges, together with the Short Horns. The Polled
Angus are universally esteemed and desired. The chief objection to this
handsome and entirely hornless breed as an animal on the ranges is its
inability to defend itself from the attacks of vicious creatures of the
horned varieties.
We have attempted here no exhaustive list, and have by no means given the full enumeration of importers, but merely a slight view of our cattle as they are and the improvements now going on. From this it will be seen that we now have as good a basis of valuable neat stock as any part of the union.
Directing our attention now to the distribution of the bands of stock, we will notice that the Willamette valley has been the radiating point. This was originally one immense field of grass, with luxuriant pasturage both summer and winter. The stock had but to pass through the verdure which grew as high as their bodies and bite off the seed ends of the long stalks, leaving the rest to be trampled upon. This lordly exuberance, however, soon gave way; and, with the failure of wild pasture, the forage became very poor and meager. In the course of a number of years a miserable "cheat" or chess came to be almost the only grass that grew. The cattle were driven to the ranges East of the Mountains: and the lands of the Willamette looked bare and mean enough. Some of the more enterprising farmers, however, began to sow domestic grasses and red and white clover in their pastures. These took kindly to the soil, and gradually began to take root in the lanes and on the hills. Cattle and birds gradually caused it to spread; and the white clover in particular is the chief forage. It is now well established, and grows with amazing strength. The farmers of this vale are moreover trying the plan of alternating their wheat crops with red clover. They are able to cut a crop of hay in June; and thereafter, through the dry months of July, August and September, the clover continually sends up clusters of fresh leaves and stalks, drawing nutriment through its long tap-root from the region of perpetual moisture. This makes the best of pasture. Some of the most progressive farmers are also producing large crops of roots, such as turnips and carrots, which furnish abundant feed in the winter and early spring. Any animal will do well on straw and carrots; and, as a thousand bushels of the latter will grow on an acre, this method of feeding should become more widely adopted.
It is no great venture to assert that the valley and hill lands of Western Oregon and Washington will in the future, by methods similar to those employed in England and Holland, produce cattle to an equal extent with those countries per square mile. Without prejudice to any section, we may observe that the sea-slopes of the Coast Mountains, which are for the most part an easy incline with many flat or nearly flat benches and table lands, and innumerable little valleys and meadows, have the humid, mild climate and the deep soil so loved by the roots and grasses and clovers, which will make them ultimately the great cattle belt. These mountains are now for the most part heavily timbered; but the axe and the wild fire are rapidly denuding the surface.
The Inland Empire is at present and for man years will be the great home of cattle. The stimulating climate, the seas of grass of the most rich and delicious character, and the chance to run half wild, have developed animals of enormous size; and the quality of beef is unsurpassed. This is the native land of the bunch-grass. This famous herbage grows in clusters or bunches varying in distance from a yard or more apart to such close proximity as to form a continuous turf. It reaches a height of from eighteen to thirty inches, with narrow leaves that fall in dense masses, and with a slender caulis or stem which bears a feathery and drooping seed-head. There are three or four varieties, one of which has a blue leaf. It is a grass rich and dry, remaining alive late in the spring and early summer, and fattens animals with the same rapidity as grain. When it cures without rain, it becomes a very good hay; yet its qualities in this condition have been very much over-estimated. That growing on the low hills and rolling uplands, and in the dryer regions, is reckoned the best. It is here the sweetest and most concentrated feed. On the high hills or mountain ranges, and in the region of greater rainfall, it is more luxuriant, and even more quickly fattening; but the flesh thus laid on is observed to be less solid, and more quickly lost upon returning to the dry winter feed.
In abut 1860, and up to 1870, cattle-grazing began to be followed in a semi-barbarous, nomadic style. The animals were marked and turned loose on the range. They were expected to take care of themselves, and sometimes were scarcely seen except at the summer round-up, when the calves were marked and the beef animals segregated and sold off. There was such a plenitude of grass which cured on the hills and was seldom buried beyond sight in the snow, and which would at least prevent starvation, that little or no provision was made for winter feed. During severe winters a quarter or half of the cattle would perish; but such occurred but once in five years; and from the milder seasons the bands came out sound and strong, and the hills became populated soon with immense herds. "Cattle Kings" sprang up all the way from Malheur to Colville. While the sum total of the ranges were not occupied, the central localities, as at The Dalles or Walla Walla, became over-stocked. In truth the bunch-grass will on the average cut only from one hundred pounds to a quarter or half a ton per acre, except in very well-favored places; and it is only a few weeks in growing. Close feed, moreover, destroys its vitality. Consequently, about 1870, and thereafter, stock began to look winter in the face with short or bare fields; and a few sharp winters dotted the hills with the bones of dead animals.
Stockmen thereupon bestirred
themselves to sow grain for hay, and to have feed for a few weeks of the
worst weather. These experiments in providing hay, together with those
made expressly with a view to test the capacity of the soil for grain,
soon proved its immense value for producing the cereals; and, with that
fever of change which overtakes even ranchers, many began to sell off their
cattle wholesale, and to go largely into wheat-raising. Fencing and plowing
of land began to seriously restrict the range; and at the present time
the huge bands of cattle are going out to date. Many stockmen are finding
it also the most advantageous system to provide ample feed for winter and
for the early spring months, and from February to April to turn off their
beef animals.
As to the location of the great ranges, we may note that upon what is sometimes called the "desert" in Middle and Southeastern Oregon, in Crook, Malheur and parts of Baker and Grant counties, where the rainfall is most scant and some of the streams have a way of sinking, and there are basins left without an outlet for lakes now exhausted or dried up, the grass is most scant. It forms a growth almost as soon as the snow melts; and the water from this snow is about all that may be depended upon, although spring and summer showers are by no means unknown. Upon the lowland south of Umatilla and Arlington, there is also a sage-brush tract where the growth of grass is light. The deep valley of the John Day, and the wider valley of the Lower Yakima, are of very much the same character. The long, stony depression northeast of Ainsworth, a smaller region, is even less productive. The pasture in these lower areas is, however, sweet and nutritious. The rainfall is cut off by the mountains and high plateaus; and the sun beats upon the bluffs and rimrocks with which many of the basins are encircled, giving each valley a climate of almost Egyptian warmth. This excessive heat and glow burn nearly all natural vegetation after the first of May.
The plateaus receive more free wind, are not confined between glowing rock walls, and get a greater fall of snow and rain. The table-land between the Des Chutes and John Day, the Blue Mountain foothills, which cover a vast area of Eastern and Middle Oregon, the Wallowa and Grand Ronde valleys and the Umatilla country in Oregon; the Klikitat table-lands, the Kittitass valley, the Upper Yakima, the Rattlesnake highlands and "Horse Heaven" country, the Big Bend, Okanagan, and the Palouse and Spokane regions of washington; and the Pan Handle of Idaho, - all receive this greater abundance of moisture, and have grass of the finest quality. An adverse feature of many of these uplands is absence of streams or springs of water. Cattle will not flourish if compelled to go farther than two or three miles to pasture; and many of these plateaus, cut on all sides by profound gorges or cañons of streams, have no springs for many miles. Artesian wells, or reservoirs to save the snow water, may relieve the difficulty of the situation.
On the mountain ranges proper the greater precipitation stimulates a forest growth, and thereby renders the pasturage less abundant and of an inferior quality. Yet the woods are, to a large extent, open glades, with much fine grass, wild pea vines, and vetches, and succulent roots and herbs. In many of these mountain regions, as on the headwaters of the Klikitat, or in the Ochoco, the vegetation of the mountains reaches enormous growth, although not of the same nutritious value as at less altitudes. The ranges west of the Cascades, and especially on the west slopes of the Coast Mountains, have the advantage of making a growth of clover almost the year round; and, while nothing is quite equal to bunch-grass, clover is but little behind, and the production per acre is much greater.
We may summarize the future of the cattle industry under the following statements, which present the conditions under which it must flourish: 1. The North Pacific coast has precisely the latitude and climate best adapted to the growth of cattle. 2. The production of grain offers the conditions for and requires the presence of neat cattle. 3. Clover and roots on the coast; clover, roots and straw in the western valleys; and corn and sorghum with roots and grain in the Inland Empire, - will be the fodder for cows and beef stock. Alfalfa will succeed well in places, notably in Southern Oregon. Large orchards of sweet apples and of pears will produce in almost any locality, especially the western valleys and hills, an unlimited quantity of food for stock of all kinds. 4. There are a hundred thousand square miles of plateaus, mountains, ravines, deserts and forests, that will always be used for little but pasture. Over these the cows, as well as the horses, sheep and goats, will for a long time run at their will, year in and year out.
HORSES.
The Pacific Northwest may very properly be styled the country for horses. The dry, stimulating air, the rich pasturage, and the hills and plateaus of the Columbia valley, afford precisely the conditions most favorable for the production of fine animals in this line. Indeed, according to the geological record, these conditions have prevailed from the most remote ages; and North America, and particularly that part of North America known as Oregon, has now for some twenty years been able to claim that it was upon her soil that this noblest of all dumb animals was developed. If Oregon did indeed give to the world this magnificent creature, she may with the more courage endeavor to lead the world still in the production of equine strength and speed. Let us here add, en passant, that it is to Professor Thomas Condon of the Oregon State University that the world owes the discovery of the extinct horse species. A single piece of a bone of the leg, found in the old sandstone near The Dalles, enable him to publish that the ancient home of the horse in paleontological time was in the valley of the Columbia; and from this and further discoveries made by him, and the consequent researches of Professor Marsh of Yale College, Professor Huxley has made the series of horse species of the distant pas of Oregon thoroughly known to Europe as well as to America. No one, however, will infer that what are spoken of as "native" horses in our state, are the lineal descendants of our paleontological horse. That animal became extinct in North America long before man appeared on earth; and it is from the European or Asiatic branch that our present stock has been reintroduced.
Oregon was found by the earliest
white discoverers to be populated with horses; but the breed was of the
Spanish line, the descendants of the steeds introduced into Mexico by Cortez
and other governors. These Spanish animals were of the desert or Savannah's
breed, - the variety ever accustomed to race over
dry hills and plains, and endowed with a taste for the waste plateaus and sandy tracts, and even not disdaining the rocky wilderness. Their ancestors were of Arabian herds brought into Spain by the Moors, and by the adventurers of Castile distributed into the two Americas, and filling within less than three centuries the plains of the Amazon and La Platte, and of the Mississippi and the Columbia. Our representatives of this grand breed are the "Cayuse" ponies, so familiarly known throughout the Pacific Northwest. By winters a little cool for the tropical Arab horse, and by in-breeding, and by much abuse and early riding and packing by the Indians, these ponies have become undersized, but are remarkably tough and active. Two of them are about equal in weight to a large horse of the Western European stock; and even three might be included in a Clydesdale or Norman Percheron. Yet these hardy animals will travel fifty or even seventy-five miles in a day without great fatigue, or bear two big Indians at a gallop. The colors are usually piebald, red and white. White or cream is much preferred by the Indians, although it is not known that they understood the art of breeding for this. In crosses with the English - or, as locally known, "American" - stock, red roans or bays are produced; and much of the stock is thus admixtured. The grades possess in many cases the excellencies of both breeds; and the Pacific Northwest horse of the future is likely to be a superior animal on this account, having hardihood and endurance from the Indian stock, and size and muscle from the American.
Since the coming of Americans to the country, their stock has been constantly introduced. At the present time, about every known variety of horse is found in this section of the Union. Perhaps the Kentucky blue-grass horses have the largest progeny; and, as many persons here are great fanciers of trotters and runners, this will probably be the case for many years. Nevertheless, the Morgan roadsters, and the Percherons and Clydesdale draft horses, are much sought and admired, and may be seen on the large farms and in the cities. as in all places, the active, medium-sized, hardy and gentle common horse, of no particular variety, or of the grade of such a breed as the Morgans, which can be used for the road, the plow or the saddle, and may be obtained at a comparatively small price, is the best for the small farmer or villager.
The farmers of the Pacific Northwest are well informed as to the horses, and supplied with records which make any particular notice of breeds or names of importers superfluous here. Probably there is no one thing in which our farmers feel greater pride or more interest; and almost every community is well supplied with superior stock animals. it is safe to claim that, on account of climatic conditions, and the superiority of our pastures and high ranges, the Pacific Northwest will supply horses not only sufficient for use in her own cities and upon her own farms, but even for extensive export to the cities of the East. Indeed, this has already been accomplished to some extent; and there are various exporters who yearly send carloads of Oregon and Washington raised horses to California, Nevada and the Rocky Mountain country, and even to New York state. Probably cattle and sheep are fully as remunerative; yet horses here, as everywhere, are most admired. The dry, electric climate of the Inland Empire is expected to produce very superior animals; yet Western Oregon has secured and still maintains a very high record.
SHEEP.
The same climatic and topographical conditions which make the raising of other stock profitable apply equally to sheep. The mountain pastures and the dry plateaus are especially serviceable to these animals; and the low valleys, as the "deserts" of Middle Oregon and the Lower Yakima, are excellent places for wintering, being furnished with natural shelter, defended from heavy snows and chilling winds, and affording in the early months of February and March a nutritious pasture.
The sheep husbandry, which began in Western Oregon, has been chiefly transferred to the Inland empire. The great center of this industry is now in Middle Oregon, southward from Arlington and Heppner, on the highlands of the John Day river, and across the ridges towards the Malheur and Klamath country, and in the Grande Ronde. It flourishes also on the Snake river, and towards the Palouse. We are not aware that there is any natural objection to the cultivation of this stock on the hills of the Spokane, or in the Big Bend country, or in the Yakima valley; yet, in the heavy grain-producing regions, the occupation of the land by sheep is not deemed profitable; and it is, therefore, upon the drier lands, which are uncertain of grain, that the sheep rancher lays out his industry. As the summer dries and burns the fields, the flocks are slowly driven to the higher mountains, - to the peaks of the Blue Mountains, to Tygh valley and the Ochoco, to the meadows and lake regions that lie on the top of the Cascade Mountains, or to the immense pastures of magnificent summer grass at the base of Mount Adams and around Lake Sequash at the head of Wind river, and northwards towards Mount Ranier.
While the close biting of the
grass and the fouling of the ground in the regions occupied by bands of
cattle is offensive to the cattle kings, and the driving of great flocks
of sheep on the highways to and fro between the lowlands and the mountains
is injurious to the small farmer whose cow feeds in the lane, this method
of sheep culture has been very profitable. It needs regulation; but it
will probably exist as long as the present character of the country remains.
There are many regions that can be best utilized by sheep; and the high
pastures will always be a refuge from the summer drought. While the native
grasses are undoubtedly killed out by sheep, the interest of the proprietor
will lead to sowing of such grasses or clovers as will flourish on the
public domains of the hills and mountains; and the trampling of the ground
and presence of the sheep will tend towards the constant fertilization
of the soil and the formation of a tough and enduring sod.
A better, and, we think, a more permanent method, is the rearing of sheep in small bands, after the English model. Each small farmer will have his dozen or hundred sheep, useful not exclusively for wool, but also for mutton, and even more for the enrichment of the soil. Every spot of land or field that shows signs of exhaustion, under grain culture, will be surrounded with a fence and left to the sheep for a season. Roots, straw and hay will be fed, and the next year this will be the most productive spot on the whole farm. Grain-raising will be carried on most successfully only in connection with cattle and sheep. While wool may not always bring a high price, it will be sufficient to pay for the care of the flocks; and the mutton and the improvement of the farm will be clear gain. The flocks on the deserts, plateaus and mountains will always be numbered by the hundreds of thousands; but the aggregate of the little folds in the valleys, on the farms, and around the orchards of the low hills, will ultimately double the other.
The history of the introduction of sheep is very interesting. Doctor Whitman early saw the advantages of the upper country for their culture, and was very anxious to interest the Indians in keeping flocks. He desired to induce the government to give them sheep for their horses. He wrote a letter to the Secretary of War upon this subject, in which he expressed the opinion that sheep would be of more service than soldiers in keeping the red men quiet. He believed that the care of flocks, the hunting and destruction of wild animals in their defense, the necessity of constant watchfulness; the possession of something of money value, the flesh to take the place of buffalo, beef and venison; the wool for the industry of the women, - were all circumstances of their culture which settle the Indians on fixed seats, lead their thoughts from war and the chase, provide for their sustenance, and material for their clothing, and make a beginning in the way of commerce. Moreover, if their wealth was in something so easily taken away or destroyed, they would be easily made subject to the direction or punishment of the government. These large views, however, which have since been adopted by General Crook, General Miles and others interested in the Indians of the present time, were wholly neglected and left unnoticed. By a misunderstanding of Doctor Whitman's directions, the immigrants of 1843 did not bring sheep, supposing that the journey was too severe. In 1844, however, Captain Shaw, the father of Colonel B.F. Shaw of Vancouver, drove a small flock with his wagon train with the intention of using them by the way for mutton, and not expecting to bring them through. But they endured the journey as well as any other stock; and something like a dozen or a score were brought into the Willamette valley. The year following a small flock was also brought through; and in 1846 Mr. Matthew Patton, late of Albina, Oregon, succeeded in bringing three hundred. In 1847, Mr. Joseph Watt, of Amity, Oregon, returned East with the intention of bringing large flocks of the very best breed, having first crossed the plains in 1844, and this time engaged systematically in their culture and encouraged others in the same business, and was one of the projectors of the woolen mills which were afterwards located at Salem. In 1853, Colonel James Taylor formed a partnership with W.H. Gray, Robert S. McEwan and Major Rhinearson to introduce sheep; and two large flocks were brought across the mountains, although one of these, intended for the Clatsop Plains, was wrecked in a storm near the mouth of the Columbia. Mr. McEwan's were distributed throughout the Willamette valley; while Rhinearson brought out a band of horses instead and took them to California.
The very earliest sheep are said to have been introduced by H.H. Spaulding of the Indian mission at Lapwai, having been obtained at the Sandwich Islands and imported along with the first newspaper press. The Hudson's Bay Company at Vancouver had a few rough-wooled Spanish sheep at an early day; and Doctor Tolmie made urgent request that this company stock the Nisqually Plains with this animal, thinking thereby to hold the country north of the Columbia river for Great Britain; but his policy was not regarded.
Since the introduction of the Merinos, they have become the prevailing species, and given character to all our flocks. Their thick, tight, oily fleece protects them well from the rains of Western Washington and Oregon, and from the alkali dust of the Inland Empire. There is, however, a considerable sprinkling of Cotswolds and Southdowns, and other varieties, together with what is called the common sheep. The English varieties, useful chiefly for mutton, will be cultivated more and more.
As to quality, the wools of the Pacific Northwest are of very high character, those of Western Washington and Oregon rather taking the lead of other sections. The wools of the Umpqua valley are said by good judges to be the finest, longest, whitest and most glossy in the whole Western World. For fine work they will always command a steady market and a good price.
We find that as early as 1842 the naturalist Peale, who accompanied Commodore Wilkes' expedition, declared that "the cool, even temperature of the climate, which enables fur-bearing animals like the beaver to carry good, fine fur throughout the year, will also favor sheep carrying an even-grown fleece in the same way," and that "for the production of such fleeces the natural grasses of Oregon are eminently well fitted." By reference to market reports, we find that "Oregon valley wool," which means wool grown west of the Cascade Range of Mountains, stands at the head of wool values of Pacific Coast production by from three to five cents a pound in the unwashed fleece. The wools of Oregon, both of fine Merino and the long, even-combing fleeces of the Cotswold and Leicester and their crosses, were awarded medals for superiority at the Centennial Exposition of 1876.
From Mr. John Minto's exhaustive
treatise on sheep in Oregon, we find the following uses enumerated as those
to which sheep may be profitably applied: First, for wool, which amounts
to from seventy-two cents to one dollar per common sheep for the season;
Second, for mutton, the demand for wethers both
for markets in Oregon, and even as far eastward as Chicago having steadily increased up to the present time, and our flocks increasing at very nearly the rate of one hundred percent per season under good management; Third, for cleaning fields of weeds and for biting brush sprouts, and thereby clearing wild lands; for which service the Merinos or Merino grades are declared to be best, as they have a natural wild taste for all kinds of herbs and brush, and are good "rustlers;" Fourth, for improving worn-out land, - instances being on record of old fields, that were supposed to have been made almost sterile by long cultivation, having been brought to a yield of forty bushels of wheat per acre by their use.
As to breeds, the Merinos are the favorite; and it is reliably stated that there is scarcely a sheep in the Pacific Northwest without some admixture of this blood. Mr. Minto, however, believes that, with improved British methods of management, the British breeds will do well. He says: "A friend of the writer in 1887 sheared one hundred and seventy pounds of wool and saved thirty-two lambs from a little flock of eighteen ewes, - cross breeds of British stock. The writer has frequently saved an increase of a hundred and fifty per cent of lambs from grade Southdowns when the native grasses were good and abundant; and now, when the use of sheep is improving the pastures of Western Oregon by the spread of white, alsike and other clovers and grasses, I see no reason why the strong and prolific British breed should not give as good yield of lambs as under their native climate, which ours so much resembles."
As to the production of wool, we find that in 1887 and 1888 there were produced by the territory west of the Cascades two million pounds; by all of Eastern Oregon, twelve million, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds; by all of Eastern Washington and Idaho, four million pounds, - making a total of eighteen million, two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for the whole of Columbia region.
As to the consumption of this vast product, but a small portion of this is used in Oregon, although our woolen mills, of which mention is made elsewhere, do a very respectable manufacturing business. Neither do we have as yet scouring works by which may be removed the dirt and refuse, which amounts, on the average, to sixty-five per cent of all, and upon which the sheep rancher is obliged to pay freight to market. But with increasing capital our great natural facilities for woolen works will induce capitalists to manufacture our wool product upon the Northwest coast, and thereby make our states a great center of woolen fabrication for the world.
GOATS.
Goats, particularly of the Angora stock, have been introduced; and the hair, which sometimes has sold for seventy-five cents per pound, brings a good return. The demand however is very variable. The animal is profitable for eating brush and keeping down sprouts on "slashings;" but, from its ability to walk over any ordinary rail fence, is not a favorite.
HOGS.
Hogs of all varieties and breeds have been prolific in the country from the earliest times. While wheat is rather dear feed, and corn does not generally meet with success, and the fern and native roots upon which the swine formerly fed are becoming less abundant, it has been found that, in all the moister regions, peas and clover, together with apples and cultivated roots, while produce, at low cost, the finest of pork. The animals are not subject to cholera or other fatal diseases.
FISHERIES.
Both the fresh and salt waters of Oregon and Washington, and the contiguous ocean, teem with fish of many kinds. We will not weary the reader with conjectural statistics as to how many thousand tons of deep-sea fish might be taken yearly from the North Pacific Ocean, since, in this one regard, our resources are practically infinite. The Hump-back Whale, which spouts from every few square miles of ocean surface, is said by some to be susceptible of cutting up into acceptable bits of whale steak; and one fish will furnish as many as six different sorts of flesh, - different portions having a different taste. Supposing now that there was one whale to every ten square miles of ocean; we should have some twenty-five billion pounds of the flesh of this vertebrate, sufficient to feed twenty million human beings a year!
But without any such monstrous cetacean humor, or radical suppositions, let us proceed to enumerate the recognized food fishes of the waters of the Pacific Northwest and notice something of their prevalence, habitat and availability. Following somewhat in the order of their present importance we shall have salmon, halibut, cod, sturgeon, smelt and herring; trout and red fish; with many inferior sorts, as flounders, porgies, tom cod, suckers, etc.
The salmon is, of course, the
royal fish of this country. It has become an article of commerce as fully
recognized and relied upon in the markets of the world as codfish, mackerel
or oysters. The statistics of the salmon business show its growth as one
of the great industries of the Pacific coast. Beginning on the Columbia
in 1866, with a pack of four thousand cases worth sixteen dollars each,
it rose to its maximum in 1883, reaching a pack of six hundred and twenty-nine
thousand cases at five dollars
each. Since then there was a steady decline of the Columbia river pack until 1887. In that year it fell to three hundred and fifty-four thousand cases, commanding a price of four dollars and seventy-five cents per case. In 1888 it increased slightly, aggregating three hundred and seventy-one thousand cases. The Columbia summer pack was regarded as some twenty-five thousand cases more in 1888 than the year before.
The total Oregon pack of 1887, however, was three hundred and seventy-three thousand cases; but that included the pack of fall salmon. This general decline of the business on our great river has been due to but one cause, and that is excessive fishing. Good judges believe that there are now less than one-fourth or perhaps one-fifth as many fish in the river as in 1866. They were then so abundant that fifteen cents apiece brought the fishermen a good income. At one dollar and twenty-five cents for each fish the fishermen now make less money. That this disparity in prices, indicative of the present small catch per boat, is not due simply to greater competitors and the consequent division of results, is amply shown by the fact that in 1876, when four hundred and sixty thousand cases were packed, but twenty-five cents was pad per fish. In 1883 the price ran up to ninety cents; and there were seventeen hundred boats on the river, the pack being six hundred and twenty-nine thousand cases.
The diminution of pack in late years is clearly due to the scarcity of salmon caused by over-fishing in the past. The destruction of fish to the number of about one million, or thirty million pounds, indicated by the pack of six hundred and thirty thousand cases in 1883 or 1884, represents but a part of the total number killed. In catching with gill-nets, almost numberless seals are accustomed to follow along and bite into many of the entangled salmon; and these are thrown away. In the flush years every boat did its best, taking sometimes from fifty to one hundred salmon per night. The canneries were so over-crowded as to refuse many boat-loads; and magnificent dead specimens were turned back into the river by the thousands. The recklessness and waste that characterize every new and successful industry is the real cause of our present lack. It must not be inferred, however, that the salmon business of the Columbia is in a declining position, or that it will ultimately cease to pay. The river is probably able to yield two hundred and fifty thousand cases per year without serious diminution; and we shall have laws favoring the fish so that they will not be too mercilessly slaughtered. The close season will be longer. A whole week in each month on the entire river will be left for the fish to run undisturbed. The laws have already been well enforced, and will be still more strict. Salmon hatcheries such as that already in existence on the Clackamas will be multiplied. By these means a business worth two million dollars or more per annum will be preserved.
As to the genera and species of our salmon, they are not salmon at all, but Oncorhynchus. Many are sea trout. Nevertheless, our people will always call them salmon; and for practical purposes they may be described as such. The distinct species are quite numerous, numbering, we believe, some thirty. But, without getting too much into zoology, it will be enough to mention the kinds, after the practical nomenclature of the fishers and market dealers. The royal fish of all is the Chinook, or Quinat, which attains an average weight of from twenty to thirty pounds, although fifty and sixty pound fish are common enough, and seventy-four pounds has been turned by a single specimen. Reports of ninety-pounders are afloat. The flesh of the Chinook is rich red, the fat equally distributed, and the oil retained in the flesh upon cooking or canning. The run begins in February, and attains its maximum in July. By some, the fish of the first run is described as somewhat different, - the quality of flesh more delicate and deeper red, and the shoulders less plump; and this earlier variety is claimed as the true Chinook, while the later is called the Hump-back. It is the later or July run which is the most numerous. Both these varieties - if there be a distinction - have a broad, spreading tail, which enables one to lift the fish by this member; while the Steel Head is so tapering at this point that the hand slips. This latter fish, the Steel Head, nearly as long, but much more slender, is a trout. The flesh is pale, and the oil separates upon cooking, making the canned goods look unappetizing upon opening. Yet, for immediate use, it is sometimes considered as fine as the Chinook. The name "Steel Head" was given from the hardness of the skull, requiring at least two blows of the club, which is used to quiet the salmon in drawing them into the boat, to destroy life. The Blue Back, which is much smaller, weighing only about seven pounds, is also a trout, and considerably resembles the Steel Head. The Fall Salmon, Hook Nose or Dog Salmon swarm in great numbers into the small rivers and bays, and into the Lower Columbia, and to some extent above the Cascades. It is small, and the flesh inferior; nevertheless, only in comparison with the Chinook is it really a valueless fish. The poverty of oil made it formerly acceptable for export, when salted, to the Sandwich Islands, where the warm climate rendered the richer Chinook unfit for use. The White Salmon, which ascends the river several hundred miles, and has special streams for its spawning-ground, resembles the Chinook in size and the Fall Salmon in quality of flesh. This salmon runs to a greater extent in the upper parts of the river than any of the other species.
There is ample evidence that
the salmon return only to the rivers in which they were spawned. The species
or varieties in each river differ distinctly from all others; and no fisherman
or fish-eater would ever mistake a Columbia salmon for a Sacramento or
Frazer river or Yukon specimen. In nothing is this more noticeable than
in the size of the fish, and in the quantity and distribution of fat. The
larger the river, the larger and fatter the fish. Thus, the Columbia salmon
is largest of all, the Frazer river salmon next, the Sacramento next, the
Puget Sound and small coast streams least. The Yukon salmon is said to
be larger even than the Columbia river fish. At first glance this may seem
to be a mere fancy, but at least a curious coincidence; and the reason
why a big river should have a big salmon is not apparent. But, when we
consider the habits of the fish, the cause seems plain. The salmon eats nothing in fresh water. It enters the river only to reach the spawning grounds, and there to die, both male and female pushing to the heads of the smallest streams and choking the lakes, even to that remote cold pond in the heart of the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia where the Columbia rises. Emaciated, cut on the rocks, with broken fins, they become the food of men, wild animals and birds. For a desperate ascent of from one thousand to twelve hundred miles up such a stream as the Columbia, the fish must begin the journey in a condition very fat and powerful. For a less journey, as in the Frazer, less force and fat is required; for the Sacramento, still less, and so on down the scale. As they mingle and spawn only in fresh water, there is no opportunity for the species of different rivers to cross while in the seas. The only real point of wonder is by what means a fish born in and adapted to the Columbia remembers, after a five or six years' absence, which is his port. Yet it is upon this amazing instinct, in which the whole intelligence of the salmon seems concentrated, and upon its consequent habits, that we must rely for securing and preserving a supply of these noblest of the creatures of our waters.
While the product of the Columbia, including fish sent fresh to market, and that canned and salted, will probably never exceed a value of three million dollars a year, it must be remembered that the British Columbia and Alaskan waters furnish a vast supply, the latter aggregating four hundred thousand cases, and the total pack of the coast for 1888 being the largest by one hundred and fifty thousand cases ever made, reaching one million, one hundred and twenty-one thousand cases. Oregon and Washington capital will be invested up North; and the salmon business will reach the dimensions of from ten millions to fifteen millions of dollars annually, - equal to our wheat or lumber.
The halibut, a fish of forty pounds weight, form large shoals off the Strait of Fuca and to a vast extent in the more remote waters, and is a delicious fish of white flesh and delicate flavor. A fleet of schooners has for more than a year been upon these fishing grounds; and some have met with very great success, taking as much as forty thousand pounds in a trip of three days. Refrigerator cars are run to carry this product fresh to New York; and we may confidently expect that the business of shipping halibut to the interior and even tot he Atlantic seaboard will reach a volume approximately equal to that in salmon.
Cod exists from Vancouver Island to the Aleutian Archipelago, and to the Sea of Okhotsk in Asia. It is disputed that they are equal to those of the Atlantic. Nevertheless there is actual proof that they are an excellent and appetizing fish, and are bound to command a good price in the markets of this coast and of the world. The beautiful rock cod is found in immense numbers off the bar of the Columbia, and up and down the coast.
Herring and smelt swarm into all the small river, and into the Columbia. No point would be more eligible than one near the mouth of this river for taking and preserving herrings. The shad imported from the East to the Sacramento have passed up to our coast, and are now taken in large numbers in the Columbia. The red fish, which we believe have been found exclusively in Wallowa Lake, is sometimes described as an inland salmon, from its red flesh and other resemblances to the Chinook. Though much smaller, it is considered the most delicate and appetizing of any fish upon our coast. We know of no reason why it might not be introduced into any or all of our thousand clear inland lakes. Trout are innumerable in all our streams and lakes, and to those fond of the barbarous "sport" of destroying animal life offer as ample an opportunity as ever did the birds to the arrows of the wild men of the plains.
MINERAL RESOURCES.
We may preface this chapter by saying that the mineral resources of the Pacific Northwest are known only superficially and fragmentarily. There has been no thorough geological survey; and the region is of such immense extent and embraces such a labyrinth of mountains and basins, with such a series of upheavals, depressions and enormous volcanic outflows in the past, that there is no equal area on earth presenting more difficult problems, or more extensive records for the geologist.
The precious metals have been
diligently sought; and some general notion of the mineral beds in which
they lie have been found. Coal has been looked for sufficiently to be seen
where the veins escarp upon the bluffs, or where the drift has been seen
in the streams. Iron is known where it lies exposed to the surface. But
the other minerals are imperfectly recognized; and the few places marked
or examined may be multiplied many fold so soon as the practical need for
some common mineral makes the search financially encouraging. In the meantime
our citizens, with a few exceptions, and the law-makers without exception,
have felt so little concern in the wonders of our geology, or the increased
value of our domain by the discovery of the wealth underground, that no
mineralogical survey has been ordered; and the very office of state geologist
has been so shorn of its remuneration as to be of not the slightest inducement
to any man of sagacity or information. So far as it has been filled, -
and filled it was for a time very ably by Professor Thomas Condon of the
State University, - it was a matter of encouragement and charity, with
the hope of an appropriation adequate for the proper prosecution of a survey
some time in the future. Our public knowledge of the wealth which lies
under the soil is superior only to that of the aborigines who preceded
us. But, in spite of this humiliating backwardness, we have, thanks to
the enterprise of newspapers and interested private parties, a general
knowledge of the great mineral belts. Professor condon, above mentioned,
and Mr. H.O. Lang, have been the leaders of this research; and the discoveries
of the former are of a nature to give him world-wide recognition. Through the Oregonian, Mr. Lang had familiarized the public with the approximate value of our mines.
To proceed with our view of this subject, one may notice that the entire Pacific Northwest, from California to British America, and from the Rockies of the Pacific, is indeed not only closely associated in a political and social and commercial manner, but it is a geological unit, one area which has been by itself and has had an integral geological history. It will assist to understand the location of mineral belts to bear in mind the succession of events in the ages millions of years past. Briefly outlined, this is as follows: The primitive rocks, such as limestone and granite, show that the ancient Oregon, before the upheaval of the present mountains, lay open to the sun and to the agency of the Pacific, even in the most remote times, portions of our state being as old as the Californian Alps or Sierras, or perhaps as the Laurentian hills. Precisely how much of the surface was above water is not accurately known, but the area was extensive. In the old times of quartz and limestone, and porphyritic and feldspathic rocks, the precious metals, washed down from the hills, or silting into the fissures of the strata, or entering the yielding quartz, made the lodes and ledges that we now find.
The Siskiyou Mountains on the south, the Blue, Coeur d'alene and Rocky Mountains on the east and the Okanagan, Selkirk and gold ranges on the north, were the boundary ranges of this old basin. The intervening region, now the vales and hills, and even high mountains of Oregon and Washington, either lay beneath the sea or else but a little above the tide. Doubtless the wash from the old hills gradually filled up the deep gulf; and in the succeeding ages the basin rose to the level of the water, and, being cut off from the sea by the splits and bars that form along the shore, gave birth to that immense vegetation which form the coal measures of the state.
The area now occupied by the Cascade Mountains, from the British line to a point below Middle Oregon, and east and west an unknown distance, was then a great swampy country, raised but little above the sea, and rank with vegetable growth, and again by depression a little below the sea and heaped over with sand. During the first elevation the coal was formed. Upon the first elevation of the Cascade Mountains, the country westward to the present limit of the land became likewise a region of swamps, alternating with depressions beneath the sea. There was also a great expanse in which iron collected in the bogs, forming the bog-iron ore. Subsequently, with the further elevation of the Cascade Mountains, and the birth of the Coast Range, came those vast volcanic convulsions for which the valley of the Columbia is pre-eminent, disrupting the old strata, and dislocating them in all directions. Much of the coal and iron and the minerals were buried thousands of feet under solid basalt rock, or even under such stupendous piles as Mounts Adams, Ranier (1) or Hood. A vast proportion of this coal was shattered or consumed by the fire. Many of the strata were elevated high on the mountains. Iron bogs were changed into hills of the ore.
With this history in view, we may now remember more easily that the precious metals are found in the axes of old mountains forming the ruins of the old Northwestern area, i.e., in Southern Oregon, in the Blue and Coeur d'Alene Mountains, the spurs of the Rockies, and on the north in the Okanagan and Colville districts. There are also mines in the middle belt of the Cascade Range, or on the Santiam and in Douglas county. From these we may infer that there was old rock above the sea in primitive times. The coal and iron are found chiefly in the middle district, i.e., from the Yakima river and the John Day westward to the Pacific. With this general view in mind, we may now proceed to mention the particular minerals and their locations.
COAL.
We mention this first as of co-ordinate importance with iron. The two are to the industrial world what the carbonaceous and nitrogenous foods are to the body. The one furnishes power, while the other furnishes tissue. Coal is the producer of power, - the stored sunshine of the ancient world. The coal used in England yields a force equivalent to the labor of one hundred millions of men per year. The Pacific Northwest is supplied with this stored force in great abundance, making it a region perfectly adapted to great manufacturing and other industrial operations. It is entirely useless to make even an approximate guess of the quantity of this mineral. There are some three or four great fields in which croppings have been discovered. The first of these is from the line of Josephine county north to the Columbia river; the second from the Chehalis river, extending on the east side of Puget Sound, and on the west flank of the Cascade Mountains north to the Skagit river; the third on the summit of the Cascade Range in Washington, between Mount St. Helens and Mount Adams, northeast to the Yakima or Kittitass; and a fourth on the east flank of the Cascade Mountains in Oregon, towards the John Day river. In mentioning these as separate fields, it must not be supposed that we mean that each field is a continuous deposit. On the contrary, nearly all these areas are mountainous country; and the coal strata, like those of all the other rocks, are dislocated, folded, faulted, and in the river valleys removed by denudation. Much of the original coal - if it ever extended uniformly over the whole of each area - has been covered mountain deep by rock, or entirely burned by the volcanic fires. The early English geologists believed that there was no coal-bed at all, - that it all had been burned by volcanic action. Many of the North Pacific strata have been so completely faulted that, even when exposing croppings, they could not be worked. Much of the coal found is of inferior quality, as well as hard to work. But, on the contrary, many of the veins yield the best quality of lignite, nearly if not quite equal to bituminous coal for raising
(1) Tacoma
stream; and many of the veins are at such an elevation and inclination on the hillside as to admit of working without hoisting. A large part of the beds are immediately upon or within easy reach of tide water.
Western Oregon Field. - Croppings of the supposititious field from the Columbia river to the borders of Josephine county in the Oregon Coast Mountains have been found in the following places: On Beaver creek near St. Helens; on the Columbia near Columbia City; on the upper Nehalem in Columbia county, where beds of great extent, with series of strata five, seven, eleven and twelve feet are reported; in large and paying quantity near tide water, the known field being said to cover five hundred square miles; and across the range from Coos Bay, on Looking Glass creek, in Douglas county. By this it will be seen that the field is extensive, and also that in the space between the Clatsop and Coos county fields there are no croppings yet found. This may be an entirely barren portion of the area.
The Cascade Fields. - Coal has been found at Wilhoit Springs, in Clackamas county, on the west slope of the Cascade Mountains, with a seven-foot vein of good quality; and on the John Day, east of the Cascades, a mine of very superior article has been found. We may suppose that the old field extended across the present range; but the volcanic activity has been so terrific here as to destroy all but the outlying borders. Nevertheless from these two discoveries it is probable that there are extensive fields left on the skirts of the mountains on both sides of the range.
Southern Oregon Coal. - There are beds at Ashland, showing an area extending even to the Siskiyou Mountains. The coal formation of these older mountains should be ticker and better than of the younger Coast range.
Puget Sound Coal. - From a point north of the Chehalis river to Bellingham Bay, north of the Sound, there are successive croppings, marking the whole area as probably coal-bearing; although, like the Oregon district, the veins are much broken, and much of the original coal has been carried away or destroyed. Nevertheless it is a poor city on the Sound which does not possess a coal mine as well as a timber belt to back it. The well-known mines of this region - Carbonado, Black Diamond, Wilkenson, Franklin, Renton, Bellingham Bay, Newcastle, etc. - are points where the mineral comes to the surface.
Washington Cascade Fields. - The belt in the great range of the Cascades seems very promising. A vein in the summit of the range between Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens is reported, and enough believed in to be called the present objective of the Vancouver & Klikitat Railroad. Northeastward from this are the well-defined mines of the Kittitass, at Roslyn, which are of large extent. As illustrating the existence of much coal in this field not yet discovered, the artesian well sunk in the Kittitass valley, and penetrating a seven-foot vein of coal, may be mentioned. It is reasonable to believe that all this region was originally one great coal-bed. But how much of it is left, or in veins of what thickness, is but little known. From all these indications we may infer that the Pacific Northwest is abundantly supplied with coal. There are croppings enough to suggest a quantity sufficient for a thousand years at the present production of about three million tons per annum.
IRON.
As coal furnishes the power for civilization, iron furnishes most of the material. Our iron is sufficient for all purposes. This is pre-eminently an iron region, the soil from basalt and lava being red with the hematite in many localities. The ore exists principally as bog iron; and there are two great belts.
Oregon Belt. - This begins at a point opposite Kalama, near Columbia City, and extends throughout the chain of eminences known as Scappoose and Portland hills, crossing the Willamette river at Oswego or Milwaukee, and extending thence southeasterly to the foothills of the Cascades. One branch reaches into Marion county; and the bed of Lake Labish contains bog iron. Throughout this region there are many rich seams and veins, and whole hills of heavy ore. One such deposit belonging to Raffety Brothers, of East Portland, is within ten miles of Portland, and next the Willamette slough. The mines at Oswego have been worked more or less, and make excellent pig iron. There are indications that this iron belt extends northward, beyond the Columbia in the hills back of Oak Point.
Washington Belt. - This exists in immense deposits in the Cascade Mountains east of the Sound, along the line of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and, being thus contiguous to tidewater, will be worked to great advantage. Magnetic iron is found at the McKenzie bridge in the Cascade foothills, and in beds in Jackson county, and also in the black sand along the coast. The only possible rival of iron as a material for mechanical uses and structures is aluminum; and this exists, as everywhere, in our clays. But the day when it may be cheaply manufactured is probably far distant.
OTHER MINERALS.
Coming to the building materials,
we find that the Pacific Northwest has them in great abundance. Andesite,
the gray, rather soft rock so abundant in our hills, which is of volcanic
origin, lies exposed everywhere. In Clackamas county it is quarried, and
makes a fair building stone. Gneiss is found in great quantities on the
"divide" between the Rogue river and Applegate creek. Granite, gray and
red, is found in many places in the Cascades, in the Blue Mountains, and
in the hills on the northern border of Washington.
Limestone, shading into marble, belongs to the older formation, skirting the geological basin, i.e., in Josephine county, in immense extent, massive, and penetrated by caverns; in Jackson county, where it occurs at Rocky Point, in lenticular masses, and is quarried for lime and for building stone. This is gray and white, with dark striae, and is very handsome. Much of it is an imperfect marble. At Huntington, in Baker county, there are large veins exposed. In Wallowa county, marble occurs in great quantity near Joseph. On the Spokane river, in Washington, there are large hills of marble; and the San Juan Islands, at the extremity of the Sound, are largely limestone. Basalt, useful for paving, and sandstone for building, are found almost everywhere. Barite, a substitute for white lead, occurs in Baker and Josephine counties, the latter bed being twenty-six feet across.
Bechelite, a valuable source of boracic acid, is found in Curry county. Buhr-stone is reported in some places. Infusorial earth, useful for polishing-powder and in manufacture of dynamite, is found in beds near Ashland. Cement deposits are reported near Oakland, in Douglas county. Cinnibar, the rock from which quicksilver is obtained, is found fourteen miles northeast of Oakland; and the mines are now successfully worked by Mr. James Chenoweth. Rock salt is reported from the Nestucca. Plumbago is found in the Siskiyou Mountains. Manganese can be mined in Columbia county. The deposits of the oxides are very extensive. Iron pyrites are abundant everywhere. Beds of this material carrying silver and copper are found in Benton county. In Nestucca it has a slight percentage of gold. At Fairdale, in Yamhill county, there are immense deposits. Saltpetre or nitre is found in Malheur county, jet in Clatsop county. Gypsum is very extensive, particularly on Eagle creek, Union county, Oregon. Nickel is found in Douglas county, Oregon. Tellurim, or hessite, a very valuable metal, is associated with gold in Union county. Platinum almost invariably occurs with gold, being from a trace to about one-eighth, sometimes one-half. Copper, native, is found in Baker county, and, as ore, is extensive, being found on the Illinois river in Josephine county, in the Cow creek cañon in Douglas county, and on the divide between the headwaters of the Molalla and Clackamas, near the base of Mount Hood. Galena is also found on the headwaters of the Clackamas; while lead occurs almost universally with silver, ore, forming a value of above sixty cents per ton of the concentrates of the Coeur d'Alene ores. Kaolin, or potter's clay, is found at Buena Vista, also on the Willamina, in Polk county, and at Smith's landing, in Clatsop county. Brick clay of fair quality is found in the heavy sub-soils of the Willamette valley. Fire clay is found in the Portland hills and elsewhere. Obsidian, jasper, chalcedony, garnet, pumice-stone, amygdaloids, chrysalite, amethysts, agates, quartz crystals, petrified wood, and fossils in innumerable quantities, offer ample reward to the seeker for handsome curiosities or beautiful stones or for the sake of geological records.
The handsomest and the only very valuable geological cabinet on the North coast is that of Professor Condon of the Oregon State University, at Eugene. Some immense elephant bones were dug up from a spring near latah, Washington, and were for a time in the possession of their discoverer, Mr. G.W. Coplen, of that place, but are now on exhibition at Chicago.
Having made this brief catalogue of the minerals, ores and metals, we may now take a comprehensive, if not a very particular, view of our resources in the precious metals. Gold is associated with the rocks of the old formation, such as quartz, granite, porphyry and the spars, quartz being the favorite resort of this metal. It has been called the most "polite" of all the rocks, giving place very readily to others seeking room. On account of this generous quality it has become, in many cases, filled with granules of gold, making it thereby one of the most valuable of stones. The quartz in granite and porphyry is also often auriferous. In case of the wearing down of ledges thus filled with the precious metal by rain and streams, the other matter is carried off to the greatest distance, even to the ocean, leaving the heavier gold and platinum to lie i the upper gravel of the stream, or to be carried down as "flour" to the lower banks. When the gold has thus been naturally separated from the rocks and left in the river beds, it is readily worked out; and this forms the "placer" mines.
While there is scarcely a river
in the Pacific Northwest which has not more or less gold in the sands,
and while the seashore beaches are also enriched by gold, there is no such
quantity as to have made placer mining very profitable. True some forty
million dollars in gold dust have been taken from Jackson county; and there
are placers which still pay for working, and others will be discovered;
and with the improvements of methods, and new inventions for saving fine
gold, the seacoast and Columbia river and Snake river sands may be worked
for many years. But, for all present purposes and practical mining, the
gold must be extracted from the ledges; and we must go to the old hills.
These old mountains, so far at least as indications upon the surface show,
are the natural home of gold and silver; and mention has been made of them
heretofore. They begin with the Siskiyou system and follow, presumptively,
a sort of bow, to appear again in the Blue Mountains and in the spurs of
the Rockies, tending north to the Coeur d'Alene and Pen d'Oreilles at the
outskirts of the Selkirk and Gold Mountains of British Columbia, and apparently
winding westward again, including the Okanagan region, and perhaps going
so far towards the Pacific as to include the limestone of the San Juan
Islands. The mountain systems thus mentioned are doubtless disconnected
and broken fragments of many older formations. But as they now lie they
form an orbit of ancient mountains, unscarred by the fire which burnt the
lands between, and buried their treasures under from one hundred to three
thousand feet of basalt and lava. The distinctively gold belt is in Southern
and Eastern Oregon. The granites and quartz of this region are mainly auriferous.
But the question is not whether gold is there, but how much metal may be
obtained, and whether in paying quantities. The bulk of these deposits
are low grade. We may look upon them as a sort of perpetual heritage; for
just as rapidly as the country settles up, and labor becomes cheap and
mining machinery
inexpensive, the quartz beds will be worked. Perhaps two or three dollars a tone may sometime be regarded as "paying;" just as the river and seashore sands which yield a dollar, or a dollar and a half a day, may afford labor to workers for a long time.
Many of the mines opened in Southern Oregon have shown a bad tendency to grow "base" as the shafts are sunk. An exception to these, which gives confidence that the great deposits are not all unproductive, is the "Swinden" mine in Jackson county. This, which we mention as an example, is described as a body of loose, pliable quartz, mixed with clay, which assays from two dollars and a half to twenty dollars, and is probably fifty feet wide. It increases in richness at greater depths. The whole probably assays four dollars or five dollar per ton. At gold Hill the quartz is abundant and shows no signs of "pinching." Josephine county is said to consist very largely of auriferous rocks of low-grade, free-milling ore. Search has been principally confined to "pockets;" and these do not seem to exist in great number. On Gallice creek in Jackson county there are great bodies of quartz.
Following the line of the old Cascade Range underlying the present system, or the present range without its cap of basalt, we find gold, with silver and copper, in Douglas county on a tributary of Cow creek; even as far north as the headwaters of the Santiam river, in the Oregon Alps, there are vast quantities of low-grade ore and perhaps some of a high value. There are also constant reports of gold in the old granite and andesite hills, near the base of Mount Hood, and in the neighborhood of the great snow-peaks of Washington. It is not impossible to imagine that the most ancient strata which underlie the basalt, and the older rocks of the coal and iron of the Cascade area, may be auriferous, and may have been upheaved by the basalt and lifted so high as to expose the mineral vein. This only waits to be discovered, although the enormous depth of the latter covering, and the fierce volcanic activity, make the search more difficult.
The "Canal Fork" mine on the Santiam reports a vein of gold-bearing quartz forty feet wide. If this be taken as a specimen, there may be great developments in the future. Eastern Oregon gold is chiefly on the east sloe of the Blue Mountains, where an old quartz and granite region was left uncovered by the lava of aftertime. Mines of those regions have been worked successfully for many years.
The "Eureka Excelsior" has a lode forty feet across, with a streak four feet wide in the middle assaying three hundred dollars per ton; the second-class ore assays from fifty dollars to one hundred dollars, while the outside layer produces fifteen dollars. On Pine creek the "Whitman" mine assays seventy dollars. Nineteen mines of the baker county region, with lodes from two to six feet in width, assay from twenty dollars to sixty-five dollars. These are paying mines. There is no telling how much of these comparatively high-grade ores there may be. Assays, stock reports and actual amount of ore in mines are most uncertain matters. A mine is frequently paying its heaviest dividends upon the eve of "petering out," even if it has to be heavily "salted." This is a part of the business.
The Nevada mines had enough ore to "last for centuries" within a few days before they gave out. But, in spite of the uncertainty of these high-grade mines, it is well established that the amount of five and ten dollar ores is very great. A great gold belt of low-grade ore, ten dollars a ton, is found west of Hailey in Idaho. Idaho silver, the great product of the Wood river mines and the Coeur d'Alene mines, are so well known as to need no details here. Both are well established, and have a great reputation. The Bunker Hill and Sullivan mine in the latter region is regarded as one of the greatest silver mines in the world. The concentrates, - a part of which require about three parts of ore, - are worth about ninety dollars a ton.
Millions of dollars are invested in these mines; and the expectation is to secure a return commensurate with the outlay. Six hundred thousand dollars were paid for the Bunker Hill mine; and it is expected to clear this um in three years. While the Idaho belt is very extensive, the northern area, extending from the Flathead Agency to the summit of the Cascade Mountains, and embracing the Colville, Okanagan, Similkameen, Kootenai and Cariboo districts, partly in Washington, and partly in British Columbia, is regarded by many as the superior of all others. On the Conconully, a branch of the Okanagan, is the Arlington mine, assaying one hundred ounces silver to the ton, with antimony, lead and sulphur. This great region has hitherto been remote and never much prospected but for quartz and placers. Those who have seen it believe that it will be the great mining section of the future, its area being one hundred by three hundred miles. These are indications pointing to great results; and the sanguine and ambitious will, until further notice, look to this as the true El Dorado of the West.
This short survey is enough to show that we have here in the Pacific Northwest, in the region of the Columbia river, all the minerals and metals necessary for the industries and arts of civilization. These exist by the bounty of God in profusion, and in localities easily accessible. There is no part of the world in which the treasures of the rocks are brought into relation with the fruitfulness of the soil and the exuberance of the climate, and the opportunities of rivers and seas, more bountifully, than in the great Pacific Northwest.
TRANSPORTATION FACILITIES.
We have considered at some length the natural features and advantages of the Pacific Northwest. It remains to see the use which its inhabitants have made of these, and the means in their reach for conveying their products to the markets of the world. We may properly remark at the outset that the