Two Years in Oregon Part 25

1. A healthy and temperate climate, whether residence in the Willamette Valley or in Southern or Eastern Oregon is chosen.

2. A fertile and not exhausted soil, adapted to the continuous raising of all cereals, to the growth of the best kinds of pasture, and to the ripening of all temperate fruits in profusion and excellence.

3. A climate and range unusually suited to cattle, sheep, and horses of the best breeds.

4. The ocean boundary on the west, giving free access to shipping for the cheap transport of all productions.

5. Mineral wealth of almost every description, most of which is yet unworked.

6. Industrial openings of many kinds, with special facilities by way of abundant water-power.

7. Beautiful scenery, whatever portion of the State may be selected by the new-comer.

8. Sport and pastime in moderation, with a notable absence of dangerous animals, and reptiles, and noxious insects.

9. A modern and liberal Const.i.tution, affording special advantages and securities to foreigners and aliens.

10. A quiet and orderly population, ready to welcome strangers.

11. Good facilities for education, remarkable in so young a country.

12. A railroad and river system of transportation, only now in process of development, and which is certain to effect a great rise in the value of lands.

And now my work is done. I have endeavored to give, in as concise and short a form as I could contrive, a faithful picture of life as it is in Oregon to-day. I have extenuated nothing, nor set down aught in malice.

If, in reviewing what I have written, I feel conscious of a special weakness, it is that I have brought too strongly into view the difficulties the immigrant will have to encounter; for I feel sure that no one, on full knowledge, will accuse me of drawing in too fair and flattering colors the attractions of our beautiful State.

May Oregon flourish by receiving constant additions to her vigorous and industrious people, whose efforts, in scarcely any other place in the wide world so certain of a due return, may make her waste places plain, and cause her wildernesses to rejoice and blossom as the rose!

APPENDIX.

Since the foregoing pages were finished, a period of six months has pa.s.sed. Nothing has transpired which should affect the opinions formed and expressed by the author in favor of the attractions which Oregon offers to the energetic and industrious. The past half-year has been one of successful development for the State as a whole. A bountiful harvest, which has been vouchsafed to Oregon while many Eastern States and many European countries have had to mourn because of drought or excessive rain and consequent scarcity, has again proved how highly favored by position and climate is this Western nook. And now, in the early days of October, we have had a week's rain to soften the clods and prepare the ground for tillage, but the sun of the Indian summer is shining with soft brilliancy, and we look for crisp nights and mornings, and lovely days, for from six to ten weeks to come.

During the six months, Eastern capital has been prodigally turned into Oregon and Washington Territory by Mr. H. Villard and his a.s.sociates.

New lines of railway designed as feeders to the Columbia River route are being pushed to completion regardless of cost, while the trunk-line, along the side of the Columbia River, is being still urged forward by the united forces of over three thousand Chinamen and all the white laborers that can be picked up. Time alone will show how far a line, which winds and twists along the banks of the mighty Columbia in devious curves, overhung by mountain-sides loaded with loose rocks at the mercy of every winter's storms, can be trusted to carry the enormous traffic predicated for it; and, granted that this slender reed has the necessary strength, at what kind of port is the hoped-for ma.s.s of grain for export to be delivered? The following article appeared in the "Daily Oregonian," of Portland, on the 10th of this last September.

The newspaper in question claims to be the leading journal of the State, and is in fact the only one publishing full daily telegraphic dispatches. It is also the organ of the Villard interest, and it may be taken that it is not likely to overstate the disadvantages attaching to the city of its publication:

"THE COST OF NEGLECT."

"The water in the rivers between Portland and the ocean is at about the usual September stage, but, owing to the absence of any means whatever of dredging the bars, the depth at the three or four shoal places is less than in former seasons. Steamers drawing seventeen or even seventeen and a half feet come up by plowing through a few inches of mud at certain points, but ships have not the force to go through, nor, in many instances, the iron bottoms to stand the rub.

It is not safe to load a vessel which must pa.s.s down the river more than sixteen feet. The result is, that grain-ships can only be partly loaded here, and must take a large proportion of their cargoes down the river. The American ship Palmyra went down Thursday with 900 tons of a total wheat cargo of 2,200. The bulk of her load--1,300 tons--must be carried down by barges and taken in at Baker's Bay. The Zamora, now taking wheat here, can only be half loaded at her Portland dock. Lighterage costs $1.25 per short ton, or six cents per cental. Thus the Palmyra must pay $1,625 extra because the river is not properly dredged. The average of lighterage this season will be about three cents per cental on all wheat that goes out of the Columbia River."

It is not far from the fact that, although from sixty to sixty-five shillings is a well-paying freight for ships from Portland to the United Kingdom, and although abundance of sailing-ships are available from the subst.i.tution of steamers in so many parts of the world, yet the actual freight charged has ranged from eighty to eighty-five shillings, this resulting from a combination of causes, of which the charges for pilotage, towage, and lighterage are among the chief.

Of course, all these charges come out of the pocket of the producer, and, unless some radical change can be effected, there is no apparent reason why these sums should not be c.u.mulated to such a height as to place the valley farmer on the level of his Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington Territory neighbor, who does not realize for his wheat much over thirty-five cents a bushel on an average market price of seventy-five cents.

Nor would there be much hope of a reduction in the inland transportation charges, were matters to progress as they have been doing during the past six months. Everything pointed toward the centralization of the control of every railroad and steamboat line in this State and the adjacent Territory in the hands of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, presided over by Mr. Villard. The narrow-gauge system of railroads in this valley, owned and operated by the Scotch company, with headquarters at Dundee, was six months back the sole hope of the valley farmers as an honest compet.i.tor with its huge rival. But a few months ago announcement was made that Mr. Villard had secured the Scotch company, by a series of astute operations in Scotland; and now, under the ninety-nine years' lease which he obtained, the narrow-gauge company has ceased its independent existence, and its traffic is being a.s.similated as to rates with that of its former compet.i.tor, while it is so conducted as to stifle its growth as a separate organization, and throw all its vitality into the other roads.

But the antic.i.p.ations, expressed in the earlier pages of this book, of an active rivalry to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, through the Oregon Pacific Railroad and its outlet at Yaquina Bay, are being realized as rapidly as men and money can do it.

Early in July last the news came through the wires that the financial battle had been won by Colonel Hogg, and that construction was to be pushed forward immediately. Short as the time is, much has been done, and more is being done. Engineering parties were organized and fitted out, and their work is nearly complete in all its parts. A good line of easy grades is located through from Corvallis to Yaquina Bay, presenting no extraordinary difficulties of construction. On this, as I write, a large force of both white and Chinese labor is employed, with the full expectation that the line will be surveyed, built, equipped, and running within four or five months from the time the first spadeful of earth was dug. Difficulties in starting a great enterprise like the Oregon Pacific Railroad, of course, abound, but so far have been successfully met. Meanwhile the goodwill of the valley farmers has been maintained throughout, and the new road will open with abundance of customers. Therefore, all interested in the undertaking are well satisfied with the prospect of having to operate a line which shall save the valley farmers two hundred and twenty-one miles in actual distance, and save them half the present charges for transportation between the valley and San Francisco, and which gives also an early prospect of ocean-going ships loading direct from an Oregon port, with wharves within three miles from the ocean, for the European or Eastern market.

It does not seem, then, an unreasonable augury that the day of exorbitant freights, excessive pilotage and towage charges, half-cargo lighterage, and also of traffic discrimination, will have pa.s.sed away for ever, so far as Oregon is concerned, when the Oregon Pacific is opened. And I think every reader of this book will admit that it is a matter of just pride to see projects formed years back, and adhered to through much evil speaking, slander, and belittling, come to their full strength and fulfillment.

The last time I visited Yaquina Bay was during the closing days of September. The afternoon sun shone on the little dancing waves as we rowed across from Newport to the South Beach, where the harbor-works are going on. A heavy equinoctial storm had raged for two days before, and it would have been no surprise had the incomplete works suffered.

But we found the men busily employed in piling large blocks of rock on the mattresses made of large, long bundles of brushwood, secured with cords, and deposited carefully in the line of the breakwater. Many of the hands were Indians, who were working very intelligently and quickly under the direction of our old friend Kit Abbey. No damage whatever had been done, but, on the contrary, the storm had piled the sand in even layers, five or six feet deep, on each side of the breakwater, solidifying and strengthening the work. Already the channel nearest to the beach, which had robbed the main channel of some of the tidal water, had been permanently closed. And the increase of the tidal in-and-out flow thus caused had proved to the satisfaction of the United States engineer officer in charge the correctness of the theory on which the works were designed. So that all tends in the one direction of opening this harbor, on which so many hopes are fixed, to ocean-going ships of deep draught.

Fortunately, the facts are being daily ascertained, tabulated, and certified by the independent authority of the United States engineers; they have minute surveys of the channel, and the changes operated by the new breakwater will be observed and recorded. Thus, as soon as the time comes to invite the shipping sailing to the Northwest coast to enter the port, there will be no further room for question as to depth of water and ease of access; but the facts will be so patent and plain to the world, that no one need be longer blinded by the persistent misrepresentations of interested parties.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Entrance to Yaquina Bay (Looking seaward)]

The effect of the opening of the Oregon Pacific Railroad, which in two, or at most three years from now, will meet at or near Boise City, Idaho, the lines rapidly pushing westward to that point, will be manifold:

First, it will open the new port at Yaquina to commerce, and so give the Willamette Valley its independent outlet, unaffected by terror-dealing bars, winter ice, and exorbitant charges. Second, it will in its eastward progress open up to settlement a broad belt of fertile and well-watered country, at present well-nigh untenanted.

Third, it will operate as a check to the pretensions of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company to entire monopoly of the transportation of the State, and its boasted consequent ability to fix fares and freights at its own sweet will.

THE END.