Portland, Oregon: Its History and Builders/Volume 1/Chapter 19

CHAPTER XIX.

1825 — 1910.

Wheat, Flour, and Dairying — Sheep, Wool, and Woolen Manufac- tures — Horticulture and Export of Fruit — Live Stock and Meat Consumption.

WHEAT, FLOUR AND BEEF.

"What has Portland to do with the farms?" says one reader. Very much indeed. Farming in Oregon started right here on the Portland townsite, and Port- land is proud to be ranked in with the tillers of the soil. It was about the year 1825 that Etienne Lucier — the Canadian Frenchman that voted for an American govern- ment at Old Champoeg — while yet a trapper and servant in the employ of the Hud- son's Bay Company — made up his mind to settle in Oregon and open a farm. He chose for his first location the upland near the intersection of East Morrison and Union Avenue streets in East Portland, where he commenced to clear oflf and open a farm. By this start and the title of Lucier, we get our authority to put in a chap- ter in the history of Portland on the subject of farms, orchards, and the lessons they teach. Lucier cultivated his little farm for a few years, and tiring of grub- bing stumps and burning brush, he removed to what is now called "French prai- rie" (so named because so many Canadian French settled there), and opened a farm on the grassy prairie lands of what is now Marion County.

Agriculture has, from the first settlement of the country, been the mainstay of the great mass of Oregon's population. Of the one hundred and two men who took part in the provisional government convention at Champoeg, nine-tenths of them were farmers. Of the great mass of immigration from 1843 to 1853, nine- tenths came to get free land and make their living by farming and stock raising. From 1843 to 1873, the main dependence of the farmer and the great mass of the Oregon people was wheat and cattle. Sheep had been introduced and some woolen mills put in operation as early as 1860, but the income from sheep husbandry was yet small. Oregon commenced shipping wheat and flour to California as early as 1850, and that was the only market for grain until 1868, when the first cargo of wheat was shipped to Liverpool. Shipments of barley and oats to California commenced as early as i860. Oregon has sold to California and European coun- tries in the last fifty years not less than five hundred million bushels of wheat and barley, counting the flour in as wheat. And that has brought back to the country not less than three hundred million dollars in cash and goods, wares and merchan- dise. The grain crops of Oregon have cleared up and fenced the farms, built the farm houses, paid for the farm machinery, paid all the store bills, sent the boys and girls to schools and colleges, and gone a long ways toward paying for all the steamboats and railroads and building all the towns and cities in the Willamette valley and eastern Oregon.

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Since 1888 the export of flour has been a very large business. Inaugtirated by WilHam Dunbar, the trade was quickly taken up and enormously expanded by Mr. T. B. Wilcox. Going into the business on the sole capital of his brains and energy in 1885, he has reduced the manufacture of flour in Oregon to an exact science, and has, and is making more flour than any other concern on the Pacific coast. When Mr. Wilcox went into the flour manufacture there was but little more than twelve million bushels of wheat annually produced in the state, and probably half as much more in Washington. But the stimulus which his operations gave to wheat raising, by increasing the price of wheat, by turning it into flour and feeding the oflFal to live stock, shipping the flour to foreign countries, very greatly influenced the production of wheat in both Oregon and Washington, so that now the annual output of wheat and flour from Portland has been raised to about thirty million bushels ; and the price this year of 1910, paid to the farmer, at this writing, is from 85 to 95 cents per bushel, according to quality.

CATTLE AND DAIRYING.

The first cattle brought to Oregon were imported by the Hudson's Bay Com- pany in 1835. Those were followed by cattle driven in from California in 1837. And one of the first propositions of the pioneer missionary, Jason Lee, v/as to bring in more and better cattle. The Spanish cattle from California were not much better than wild cattle from South America. Jason Lee and Ewing Young organized a cattle company and a drove of six hundred head were purchased in southern California and driven north through the Sacramento, Rogue River and Umpqua valleys to the Willamette valley. These cattle cost three dollars a head in California. They were the long horned Mexican breed, and their horns would be worth nearly three dollars a head now. Their only value was for beef and breeding purposes — crossing them with improved breeds. But now, even for beef, they would be worth forty dollars a head — such is the change in the times. But these Mexican bred cattle rapidly increased on the rich Willamette grass ; and when gold was discovered in CaHfornia twelve years afterward, Oregon had lots of beef to sell and did sell it to the miners in northern California. The first effort of any importance to improve the breeds of cattle in Oregon was made by S. G. Reed, commencing with the year 1872. In that year Mr. Reed purchased a fine tract of land at Reedville, in Washington County, and another very much larger at Broadmeads in Yamhill County, and stocked both places with the best beef and dairy cattle he could find in the eastern states or Scotland. Short horns, Ayreshires and Jerseys were purchased without regard to price, and im- ported by transcontinental railroad, together with men skilled in the breeding of these breeds of cattle. Reed's cattle made a great sensation at all the agri- cultural fairs and stock shows, and excited so much interest and rivalry that many importations of thoroughbred cattle were made by other farmers.

Mr. Reed only planted the seed and showed Oregon farmers the possibili- ties of the business. And notwithstanding such liberal outlays of cash for the finest beef and dairy cattle to be had in the world, the dairy industry made slow progress until the farmers were forced to see that they had cropped their land in wheat so long that there was but little profit in raising wheat at 60 or 70 cents a bushel.

Then Mr. William Schulmerick, and a lot of progressive farmers in Wash- ington county, organized a creamery association to make the butter of the whole neighborhood at one place, and with one outfit of machinery by an experienced butter maker. A year's trial proved that there was more money in making but- ter and cheese than in raising wheat. And so the news spread. Tillamook County took the idea up early because that country could not raise and ship grain at a profit, and because it had the best soil and climate in the world for butter and cheese. And so the dairying business spread all over the Willamette valley.




!

SCENE AT ANKENY AND WEST PARK STREETS DURING FLOOD
THE FLOOD AT FRONT AND MORRISON STREETS
In Tillamook County the dairy industry has raised the price of good grass land from twenty-five dollars and up, to one hundred and fifty dollars an acre; and the annual value of the output of cheese and condensed milk from that county now exceeds the value of grain, from any county in the Willamette valley. The number of butter making creameries in Oregon is over one hundred, and the milk condensing plants exceed fifteen, shipping as many cases of condensed milk from the produce of the farms as cases of fish are shipped from the Columbia river.


STATISTICS.

Dairy cows in the state
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
250,000
Annual production of cheese in Oregon
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
5,000,000 lbs.
Number of milk condensers in state
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
15
Annual output of milk condensers
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
300,000 cases


VALUE OF DAIRY PRODUCTS.

1905
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
$10,635,000
1906
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
14,000,000
1907
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
15,000,000
1908
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
17,290,000
1910
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
17,500,000


SHEEP AND WOOL.

Himes' "History of the Willamette Valley" records the introduction of sheep into Oregon as follows : "Hon. John Minto, an early pioneer of Marion County, and an authority on this subject, says that the first sheep ever seen in Oregon were brought from California by a man named Lease, an American who had nine hundred head of sheep in the Sacramento valley in 1837. Ewing Young, while importing cattle and horses, as already related, met Lease and advised him to take his flock to the Willamette valley, Oregon. He accordingly drove one-half of his flock through to Oregon in 1837. These sheep were sold mostly to the retired trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company. It is believed that Lease brought a second flock of four or five hundred from California in 1842."

"In 1844 the first sheep from the eastern states were brought in by Joshua Shaw and his son, A. C. R. Shaw, who was superintendent of the penitentiary under Governor Gibbs. Another flock was brought in from the states by H. Vaughn. But the first well bred flock of any size was brought across the plains by Joseph Watt in 1848. Watt was a good judge of such stock, and taking a personal interest in the matter selected a flock of three hundred first-class sheep for the quality of their wool."

It is interesting for the reader to stop and think for a moment of the vast care and trouble it was to bring those defenseless animals on foot all the way from Ohio to Oregon, nearly three thousand miles. How they were protected from the cayotes, wolves, panthers, bears and Indians in their long journey and kept in health and strength to make their daily walk of eight or ten miles, is past all comprehension at this day, when everybody wants to ride in a palace car or dash off three hundred miles a day in an automobile. It is fortunate for Oregon and for mankind that there were such men to do such feats to settle the country. For it is certain if the task of settlement had been left to the degenerates of the present day, the country would have been taken by the Canadians or held by the Indians.

It may be of interest to remark, that the man, Jacob Lease, whose name touches Oregon in this single instance of ringing the first sheep to this country, was from Belmont County, Ohio, where the author of this book was born. Lease was a dreamer and adventurer. He had read the Spanish tales about the California paradise, and drunk it all in as real gospel, long before the discovery of gold, and determined to cast in his lot with the Spaniards. But before leaving the region of Belmont County and Wheeling, Virginia, he made a great effort to get up a colony to come out to California. In fact, he projected his scheme on a scale large enough to land a ship load of resolute men on the coast of California, capture the country and raise the American flag and organize an American state ten years before Fremont at the head of the United States exploring expedition raised the American flag at Monterey in 1846. Lease did not succeed in organizing a party to go to California, but went there alone in 1835, by the way of New Orleans, Vera Cruz and across Mexico.

But to "return to our mutton;" sheep did so well in Oregon that the tables were turned by 185 1, and Oregonians were driving mutton sheep back to California to sell to the miners for food.

But the rapid increase of sheep and the scarcity of woolen fabrics for clothing, excited interest in a proposition to build a woolen mill and manufacture Oregon wool into the needed cloth and blankets.

JOSEPH WATT'S WORK.

Joseph Watt did not put in two hundred and forty long weary, nerve racking days in driving three hundred sheep from Ohio to Oregon without getting a few useful ideas in his head. One of these thoughts was the building of a mill to manufacture wool. The probability is, that while Watt drove the sheep, the ambition to build a woolen mill drove Watt. And so by the time he got his sheep safely into the Willamette valley and comfortably provided for on his beautiful farm at Amity, he had his mill all ready to run except building the house and putting in the machinery. In fact he brought some of the machinery with him; for he brought along a wool carding machine, the first brought to Oregon, and which made into rolls the fleece of his sheep the next spring, while the pioneer women got out their old wheels, or made new ones, and spun the first wool off Watt's sheep.

But to return to the woolen mill. When Joe Watt undertook a job he was not a "quitter." He got his stock subscription paper ready, and by the end of 1853 ^e had got the money, the machinery, the factory building, and was making woolen cloth at Salem in the first woolen mill on the Pacific coast called the "Willamette Woolen Mill." The mill was operated by water power brought down from Santiam river; worked up four hundred thousand pounds of wool annually, and paid out $100,000 annually for wages to the operatives who were mostly Salem girls. The mill prospered for many years; and after twenty-three years successful operation was unfortunately destroyed by fire.

Other mills have been put in operation in the state in addition to the Watt mill. One at Brownsville, Linn County, has been operated successfully for many years, and has a large store in Portland to sell its goods and clothing. A larger mill than either the Salem or Brownsville mills was erected at Oregon City in 1865; and although once burned down, was speedily rebuilt and has made fortunes for its owners, who are citizens of Portland. Its employees number about four hundred.

But the largest and most successful enterprise of the kind is the Portland Woolen Mills, promoted by Mr. W. P. Olds of Olds, Wortman and King, and having its new and extensive factory at St. Johns, where between four and five hundred workers are steadily employed. The city of Portland is the center of this woolen manufactures business, and is promoting and developing a larger manufacturing interest in woolen goods and clothing than all the rest of the Pacific coast combined.

The last state census shows one and a half million head of sheep in the state, and the probability that there were several hundred thousand more scattered around through the sage brush and browsing the bunch grass on inaccessible mountain sides that were not reported. The annual wool clip in Oregon is now about twenty million pounds a year, worth twenty cents a pound as it comes off
HENDERSON LUELLING
(Who brought first fruit trees to Oregon)
the sheep's back, making an annual income of four million dollars to the wealth of the state.


HORTICULTURE AND EXPORT OF FRUIT.

Dr. J. R. Cardwell, the veteran horticulturist of the state, and president of the State Horticultural Society for nearly a quarter of a century, and whose lifelike likeness appears on another page, has saved the author a world of trouble by recollecting and writing down the early history of horticulture in the vicinity of this city. What is said here is what Dr. Cardwell says and knows to be the facts. The gentlemen of Hood river, and the most favored localities have not surpassed the big red apple of the '50's, that gave Oregon the world-wide reputation of "the land of the big red apples." That was before the advent of the codlin moth, the scale, and the fungus.

The fungus growths came first; were noticed on the apples in the '60's—first the bitter spots on the Baldwin, then the scab and all the rest.

The first bark louse, as a pest, was noticed in 1870—trees literally covered. The enemy came. In '75 it was gone.

The first codlin moth was discovered in a box of early apples from California, in 1882; did not become a pest until early in the '90's, when the wooly aphis and the whole aphis family with the San Jose scale and other pests from California, put in their appearance. We have them yet.

The introduction of the first cultivated fruits in the country in 1824 by employees of the Hudson's Bay Company is a pretty story, with a touch of romance. At "a dinner given in London in 1824 to several young men in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company, bound for the far distant Pacific coast, a young lady at the table, beside one of the young gentlemen, ate an apple, carefully wrapped the seeds in a paper and placed them in a vest pocket of the young gentleman, with the request that when he arrived in the Oregon country, he should plant them and grow apple trees. The act was noticed and in a spirit of merriment other ladies present, from the fruits of the table, put seeds of apples, pears, peaches and grapes into the vest pockets of all the young gentlemen. On their arrival at the Hudson's Bay Company fort at Vancouver the young gentlemen gave the seeds to the company's gardener, James Bruce, who planted them in the spring of 1825. From these seeds came the trees now growing on the grounds of the Vancouver barracks, as transferred to the government on the disbanding of the company. One of these trees has been recently identified, marked and protected, and is now 85 years old, and in a healthy condition.

The apple and the pear trees and the grapevines from these seeds are yet annually bearing fruits on the grounds of the government barracks af Vancouver. Mrs. Gay Hayden of Vancouver, informed me she had eaten fruit from these trees for 54 years. The fruit is not large, but of fair quality. _ Fortunately the government does not allow a tree to be removed or destroyed without an order from the department. Captain Nathaniel Wyeth, in his diary of 1835, speaks of having grafted trees on his place, Fort William, on Wapato island, now called Sauvies' island. Grafts and stock must have come from the Sandwich islands, then the nearest point to the cultivated fruits, which early missionaries had brought to those islands. Captain Wyeth left the country soon after, and we have no record of his success with these fruits.

The Hudson's Bay Company introduced the first cultivated roses as early as 1830, a pink rose, with the attar-of-roses aroma. An occasional Hudson bay rose may 'yet be seen in the old yards in Oregon City, and at Vancouver. It is sometimes called the mission rose.

In the summer of 1847, Henderson Luelling, of Iowa, brought across the plains, several hundred yearling grafted sprouts— apple, pear, cherry, plum, prune, peach, grape, and berries— a full assortmentment of all the fruits grown in the then far west. These were placed in soil in two large boxes, made to fit into a wagon bed, and carefully watered and tended on the long and hazardous six months' journey with an ox team, thousands of miles, to the banks of the Willamette, just north of the little townsite of Milwaukie, Clackamas County.

Here a little patch in the dense fir forest was cleared away with great labor and expense, and the first Oregon nursery was set that autumn with portent more significant for the luxury and civilization of this country than any laden ship that ever entered the mouth of the Columbia. A fellow traveler, William Meek, had also brought a sack of apple seeds and a few grafted trees. A partnership was formed and the firm of Luelling & Meek started the first nursery of 1848. Roots from seeding apples planted at Oregon City and on French prairie, and sprouts from the wild cherry of the vicinity and wild plum roots brought in from Rogue river valley, furnished the first stock. And it is related that one root graft in the nursery, the first year, bore a big red apple and so great was the fame of it and such the curiosity of the people, that men, women and children came from miles around to see it and made a hard beaten track through the nursery to this joyous reminder of the old homestead so far away.

Ralph C. Geer also came in 1847 and brought one bushel of apple seeds and half a bushel of pear seeds and was one of the first to plant an orchard in the Waldo hills.

People in those days in this sparsely settled country knew what their neighbors were doing, and in the fall of 1848 and spring of 1849 they came hundreds of miles from all over the country for scions and young trees to set in the little dooryard or to start an orchard; so that the trees were soon distributed all over the settlements of the valley—yearlings selling at 50 cents to $1 each.

The first considerable orchards were set on French prairie, and in the Waldo hills and about Salem. Of apples the following varieties were common: Red Astrachan, Red June, Talman's Sweet, Summer Sweet, Gravenstein, White Winter Pearmain, Blue Pearmain, Genet, Gloria Mundi, Baldwin, Rambo, Winesap, Jenett, Seek-no-Further, Tulpahockin, American Pippin, Red Cheek Pippin, Rhode Island Greening, Virginia Greening, Little Romanite, Spitzenberg, Swaar, Waxen, and a spurious Yellow Newtown Pippin, since called Green Newton Pippin—a worthless variety which has since caused much trouble to nurserymen, orchardists and fruitbuyers, and brought by mistake for the genuine—and other varieties not now remembered.

Of pears, the Fall Butter, Pound Pear, Winter Nellis, Seckel, Bartlett, Easter and others. Of cherries. May Duke, Governor Wood, Oxheart, Blackheart, Black Tartarian, Kentish and others. Peaches, the Crawford, Hale's Early, Indian Peach, Golden Cling, and seedlings. Of plums, the Gages, Jefferson, Washington, Columbia, Peach Plum, Reine Claude, and Coe's Late Red were leading varieties. Of prunes there was only one variety, our little German prune, a native of the Rhine, sometimes called the Rhine prune, and from which our Italian is a lineal descendant—a sport from its native country. The grapes were the Catawba and Isabella.

The climate was propitious, and the soil fertile, and there were no insect pests. Trees grew rapidly and they were prolific of such fruit as had never been seen before.

About 1850, a Mr. Ladd started a nursery near Butteville, and in the same year George Settlemier arrived by way of California with a good supply of fruit-tree seed, which he planted on Green Point, and afterwards removed to his present home at Mount Angel, where, as fast as his limited means would allow, a large stock of fruit and ornamental trees were accumulated, making in all the largest variety in the territory. Mr. Settlemier wisely interested his large family of sons in the business by giving them little blocks of ground for side nurseries of their own. J. H. Settlemier of Woodburn, tells with pride how he started at 10 years of age, in three fence corners, and at 13 had 1,000 trees and sold one bill of $60.

Another nursery was started near Salem and the pioneer fruit industry was fairly inaugurated. This year Mr. Luelling went back east and selected from
DR. J. R. CARDWELL
For twenty years president of Oregon Horticultural Association
the extensive nurseries of Ellwanger and Barry and A. J. Downing a large variety of young trees and plants, which he brought back via the Isthmus of Panama, carried across by Indians and mules. This time Mr. Luelling, to correct his mistake in the Yellow Newtown Pippin, had Mr. Downing personally point out the trees as they were dug. Strangely the same mistake occurred again, and again Luelling brought out the Green Newtown Pippin, and it was not for some years that the real Yellow Newtown Pippin was introduced into Oregon. The first box of apples placed upon the sidewalk in Portland in 1852 by Mr. Luelling was eagerly purchased by the admiring fruit-hungry crowd that gathered about, at $1 per apple, and returned the neat little sum of $75.

The home market now showed many of the above mentioned fruits, which were eagerly sought at fabulous prices. Apples brought as high as $1 per pound by the box, and in Portland retailed at $1.50 per pound readily, and all other fruit nearly as much.

Californians fruit-hungry, with plethoric purses, bid high for the surplus and in 1853 a few boxes securely bound with strap iron (as was the custom in those days for protection against fruit thieves), were shipped to San Francisco and sold for $2.00 per pound.

In 1854, 500 bushels of apples were shipped and returned a net profit of from $1.50 to $2.00 per pound. In 1855, 6,000 bushels were shipped and returned $20 to $30 per bushel. Young trees were now in full bearing and the export of 1856 was 20,000 boxes. This year one box of Esopus Spitzenberg paid the shipper a net profit of $60, and three boxes of Winesap were sold in Portland at $102. From this time to 1860 the fall and winter shipments bi-monthly to San Francisco, per steamer, were from 3,000 to 6,000 boxes.

The business decreased from 1860 until 1870. Only a few boxes per steamer of the late winter varieties were sent. There were the Yellow Newtown Pippin, Winesap, Red Cheek, Pippin, Genet and Red Romanite, which grown in our cool climate, kept until the California varieties were gone. This marks the decadence of the fruit industry in Oregon. California sent us apples, pears, cherries, plums, prunes, apricots, grapes, and berries a month or two earlier than we could produce them; and with them came many of the insect pests which had been imported from Australia and the eastern states, and which hitherto had been unknown to us. In our isolation we had no outlet by rail or water for our surplus products. Transportation, such as we had, was enormously expensive. We could not even ship dried fruits. Our elegant orchards were neglected and the fruit allowed to fall to the ground and decay, thus furnishing breeding grounds for the green and wooly "aphis" and the "codlin moth."

In 1857, Henry Miller of the firm of Miller & Lambert, of Milwaukie, who had purchased the orchard of Luelling and Meek, sent to Ellwanger & Barry, of Rochester, New York, for the best drying prunes; and in answer received scions of the Italian (Fallenburg), and a little oblong purple prune walled the d'Agen, but not the prune known now as Petite d'Agen or French prune.

About the year 1858, Seth Luelling, a brother of Henderson Luelling, set the first Italian prune orchard, five acres, near Milwaukie. Others, noting the elegance of the fruit, in quality, size, and flavor, and its fine shipping and drying qualities, began setting trees in different localities over the state for home use, and as an experiment to test locality, and as a basis for business calculation. About 1870 there was much talk and speculation about prunes and prune growing as a business, for and against, those favoring showing facts and figures, those against claiming that our prunes were not the true German and Italian prunes, and that the prunes in this country would, as they had in eastern states, degenerate in a worthless, watery plum not fit for drying, and, at any rate, that the curculio would soon come and destroy them. Solid business men considered the prune business a visionary scheme, not worthy a serious consideration.

To verify our plums and prunes, in 1872, I ordered from August Bauman, of Bolwiler on the Rhine, one of the largest and most reliable nurserymen in




Germany, scions of fourteen varieties of plums and prunes. These came by ex- press at a cost of $ii per package. After tive orders and tive packages in va- rious shapes had been received in worthless condition, the sixth package envel- oped in oil and hermetically sealed in a tin can, came in good order. These were grafted on bearing trees, and the third year bore fruit — the Italian prune, German prune, the Petite d'Agen. Coe's Golden Drop, and all other varieties — just such fruit as we have been growing for these varieties — thus settling the matter of varieties beyond dispute. Whereupon, from 1S71 to 1881 I set 80 acres to or- chard near Portland; 6,000 prunes and plums, i.ooo Royal Ann and Black Re- publican cherries, 1,500 Bartlett pears, 500 Winter Nellis and other pears and winter apples.

This I am told, was the first commercial prune orchard on the coast. In 1876 I built a three ton box dryer, dried several tons of pitted peach-plums, which sold at 16 cents per pound in 50 pound boxes. The hrst yield of prunes dried in 1876 brought 12 cents, and for some years did not drop below 9 cents.

"I. R. Cardwell."

From the above account of the starting of the fruit industry in Oregon, nearly the whole of which is so near to Portland as to be a part of its history, it will be seen that it had its ebb and flow in the tide of prosperity. For fully twenty years, dating from 1870, there was very slight interest in raising fruit for sale in Ore- gon. The old orchards which had produced the "big red apples" were still pro- ducing fruit of a sort that would sell for something, although much of it was infested with the codling moth work, and all of it was scaly and sent to market in bad shape. To point out the particular time when there was a revival of interest from this period of depression, is not easy. The organization of the state board of horticulture in 1S85, with Dr. Cardwell as president, is probably the date when horticulture in Oregon commenced its ascent to the high state of prosperity in which it is now making money for all its well informed and industrious workers. The farmers about Ashland, in Jackson County, were producing just as tine apples, peaches and pears in 1863,-4 and 5, as they are today. But there was no market for the fruit; and there was scarcely any price for the land then that is selling now without fruit trees on it for $500 an acre.

And in Hood River valley, which had easy transportation to Portland by steamboat, there was very little sale for land on account of its value for produc- ing fine fruit, prior to 1895. And the advantages of Hood River for fruit rais- ing was well known as early as 1870. W. P. Watson, who owned a fine "beaver dam" tract of land at Beaverton. in Washington County, and was making money raising onions on it for the California market, traded his farm for one atljoining the little village of Hood River in 1870, his reason for doing so was that he could raise far better peaches and apples up there, than out in Washington County. The best apple land in Hood River valley could have been bought at that time at from ten to fifteen dollars an acre, and a lot of it could have been taken up as homestead. The same lands without fruit trees on them would sell for five hun- dred dollars an acre now.

The explanation of this great change, is the development of a market for the fine fruit outside of Oregon. While the orchard owners in Clackamas and Yam- hill Counties were debating whether they had better dig up their trees and sow wheat in the place thereof, or keep on selling Yellow Newtowns, Baldwins, and Bellefleurs to the Portland grocers for fifty to sixty cents a box. a few Hood River men got enough apples together to make a car load, antl packing them in neat boxes with tasteful clean papers sent them to New York on a venture — a reckless venture. And what was the result? The hard pressed Hood River farmers, the "Colonists" from Iowa, had wrought a miracle in trade and finance. Apples that could not have been sold for more than sixty cents a box in Portland were sold in New York for three dollars a box. The secret was turned loose, and Hood River apple lands looked like gold mines the next day. as in fact they

i"^'

have been the most reHable gold mines ever since. And this morning's daily paper (September 2, 191 o) announces the fact that Hood River apple growers have sold to one dealer in New York city, four hundred car loads of apples for an aggregate sum of half a million dollars. This purchase by Steinhardt & Kelly, fruit dealers of New York city, is said to be the largest single purchase of fruit ever made in the United States. This great sale of apples, most of which will go to London, will be filled by the varieties known as Yellow Newtowns, Spitzen- bergs, Jonathans, Ortleys, Arkansas Blacks and Winter Bananas. This sale, this early in the season shows that the market for first class fruit is not likely to be overdone, and that orchards on good soil and well taken care of, will pay the very highest rate of interest, over all costs of producing the fruit, on a valuation of three or four thousand dollars an acre.

And here is an important fact in the development of the fruit industry of the world, and the distributors of food products by means of modern transportation agencies. Here are four hundred car loads of fine apples produced within sixty miles of a city of two hundred and twenty thousand people, and where transpor- tation would not exceed five cents a box ; and yet these apples are sent entirely across the continent at a cost of fifty cents a box for freight, put in cold storage in New York city, and later on sent to London and other cities of Europe, and sold at such prices as give the dealers profits and expenses all along the line. None of the Pacific coast cities buy these fine apples ; nor do they get anythuig that is equal to them. The people of the Pacific coast won't pay New York prices for Oregon apples. The same may be said of pears produced in Rogue River valley in south- ern Oregon. Rogue River pears are sent to Montreal, Canada, as well as to New York. These facts seem to prove that the demand for Oregon fruit is not likely to be over-supplied within a lifetime.

When Oregon sent its delegation to the World's Fair Exposition at Buffalo, the enthusiastic representatives of Oregon fruit put up a flaring aggressive placard over their exhibits, which was at the time thought to be over-wrought, and claim- ing too much, but which it seems that time and trial is fully vindicating, as follows:

CHALLENGE.

"Come Doum Arkansas! Come Donm British Columbia! Come Dozvn Virginia!

Come Doztm New York! Come Down World! The Oregon

Rooster is up to Stay! We Show the Biggest Apples,

and the Biggest and Best Fruit of All Kinds!

They are no' Flies on Oregon Fruit."

This great victory for Oregon fruit against all competition in the whole world that has shown fruit at the national expositions has not been accomplished with- out the application of persistent painstaking labor, long and careful experience, and scientific knowledge. Fruit pests of all kinds have had to be combated and reduced to the minimum ; soils had to be studied ; the varieties of fruit adapted to different soils had to be determined; and the methods of care and culture thor- oughly studied. In this work the professors of the Oregon Agricultural Ex- periment Station have given their best thought and hearty aid and support. Experimenters and observers in every locality have freely contributed their time and money; and the most disagreeable and thankless task of enforcing the law against fruit pests so as to clean up old orchards has been laid on shoulders that knew they must sacrifice friends and popularity by a faithful discharge of duty. The hardest job in this last line of duty in the whole state fell to the lot of Mr. Millard O. Lownsdale, a son of the founder of the city of Portland. Mr. Lown- dale had gone up to "Old Yamhill" County, where the oft-time praised "big red apples" alvv'ays grew, and purchased one of the most sightly and perfect locations for a great commercial orchard in the state; and had at great expense converted it into not only a most beautiful estate, but also into a great money m aking propo-



sition. The only "fly in the ointment" was the neglect and refusal of his neigh- bors, proprietors of the old "big red apple" trees, to clean up their old trees, purge them of scab, fungus, scale, and codling moth. His example was not sufficient to secure reform. The law must be enforced, and Lownsdale was appointed by the governor to enforce the law. Then the trouble commenced. The inspector pointed to the law and demanded compliance or destruction of the infected trees. The owners pointed to their glorious past, and the ties and memories of the days long gone by when these dear old trees fed the multitude, and under whose sur- viving boughs generations of children had played — and eaten red apples. James Whitcomb Riley's lines were invoked to stay the hands of the destroyers. And here we say good bye to "the old red apples."

"The orchard lands of long ago !

O drowsy winds, awake and blow The snowy blossoms back to me,

And all the buds that used to be ! Blow back again the grassy ways

Of truant feet and lift the haze Of happy summer from the trees

That trail their tresses in the seas Of grain that float and overflow

The orchard lands of long ago !

"Blow back the melody that slips

In lazy laughter from the lips That marvel much that any kiss

Is sweeter than the apple is. Blow back the twitter of the birds ;

The lisp, the thrills, and the words Of merriment that found the shine

Of summer time a glorious wine, That drenched the leaves that loved it so

In orchard lands of long ago.

"O Memory ! Alight and sing

Where rosy-bellied pippins cling. And golden sunsets glint and gleam

As in that old Arabian dream — The fruits of that enchanted tree

The glad Aladdin robbed for me! And drowsy winds awake, and fan

My blood as when it overran A heart, ripe as the apples grow.

In orchard lands of long ago V

Since the above was written Mr. Lownsdale mentioned above, sold his 300 acre fruit farm in Yamhill County to Michigan capitalists for the sum of $300,000,

INTERESTING FRUIT HISTORY.

A number of valuable additions have been made to the fruits of this region by the work of Oregon horticulturists. The largest and best cherry now produced anywhere on the face of the earth was developed by Joseph H. Lambert, residing within two miles of Portland city limits. "The Lambert" cherry was produced by Mr. Lambert at his nursery near Milwaukie, about twenty-five years ago. It is the largest of cherries, dark rich color, and of a delicious cherry flavor and




commands the highest price at the market, and can be shipped in good condition as far as New York city.

Mr. Lambert was born in Indiana, December i, 1825, and moved to Iowa in 1847, working on a farm, and later forming a partnership in operating a portable saw mill. In the spring of 1850 he and a man named David Watkins prepared an outfit and started for the California Eldorado, but when the party which had joined the two hardy emigrants reached the point where the roads fork, one going to Oregon and the other to California, Lambert and one member of the party decided on Oregon and they wintered near Salem. In the spring of '51, Mr. Lam- bert went to Yreka, California, and worked in the mines long enough to discover he was not cut out for that sort of occupation, and he returned to the Willamette valley and went into the logging business, being employed by Aleek & Luelling, of Milwaukie. He soon gave this up and joined a surveying party which ran the meridan line from Portland to Puget Sound. When this was completed, the same party ran the first standard parallel south and then townshipped a few tiers, which took in Salem.

Mr. Lambert was introduced to the pursuit of horticulture in an odd sort of way. He had during the winter and spring of 1853 earned a considerable sum of money by leasing and operating the Meek & Luelling mill, and had about decided to return to Salem. But his employers were financially embarassed and could not pay him, but offered him work on their nursery until they could meet the obligation. He worked for the firm until 1854, and after residing on a 320- acre donation claim in Powell's valley he and his father-in-law, Henry Miller, of Milwaukie, bought Mr. Meek^s interest in the orchards for $25,000.

After various ups and downs the farm was paid for, and some years later Lambert bought out the other interests and became the exclusive proprietor of the once famous orchard and the historical spot where the first cultivated fruit west of the Rocky mountains was produced.

The cherry trees which formed that section of the nursery were brought across the plains in an ox wagon packed in boxes and growing in their native soil.

Mr. Lambert lived to be eighty-four years of age and passed away, full of honors, as of years, the benefactor of mankind, and carrying with him into the great future the praises and prayers of all who knew him.

Not far from Mr. Lambert's nursery, in an equally old and successful nursery of Henderson Luelling another very valuable cherry was produced some years pre- ceding the Lambert. As experience with it proves its great value — specially val- uable as a shipper to long distances — the fruit of necessity must have a name, and Mr. Luelling not caring for the honor himself, called it the "Bing" in honor of Bing, a chinaman who had for a quarter of a century most faithfully labored in the nursery and taken care of his employer's interests — many other fruits have been produced in this vicinity that cannot be noticed here. This shows the his- torical interest in fruit culture at this point, where the great fruit interest of the Pacific coast started sixty-two years ago. ^ '

SCHOOL TEACHING AND APPLE GROWING.

The great gold mine success in producing the best apples in the world in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon, has not failed to catch the dollars as well as the attention of many classes of people. Real estate "boomers" and speculators were among the first to rush into the business. Good fruit lands were not only grabbed up and sold out at speculative prices in small tracts ; but also lands that were worthless for fruit have been worked ofif on the unwary and inexperienced at prices one hundred times their value for any purpose. Other land dealers, more honest and having confidence in their lands have divided them into ten acre tracts and sold them out at prices that would cover the cost and profit on the land, and all the expenses of setting to trees, cultivating and caring for them for five years, and then delivering the orchard in its first bearing to the purchaser. This form




of investing in a fruit farm has been a favorite plan with city people of moderate means, for moderate fixed salaries ; and with no class more popular than with the teachers in our public schools, hundreds of them having put their savings into such investments.

TEACHERS FOR APPLE GROWERS.

A recent issue of the Daily Oregonian noticing this phase of public interest in fruit growing, says :

"A number of teachers in the public sghools of Portland and elsewhere in the Pacific northwest have invested their savings in small acreage tracts in this vicinity, with the view, it is said, of becoming associated apple-growers. Consid- ering the price of the acreage bought, the cost of putting the land under culti- vation and buying trees and properly caring for them until they begin to bear, the venture is a brave one. This is especially true in view of the fact that the women buyers will not be able to do any of the work themselves but must hire everything done. Still the hope that induces a toiler on a salary to undertake an enterprise of this kind in a small way is by no means a forlorn one. As the years go on, this acreage will increase in value, and the apple trees, if judiciously se- lected, properly set and cared for, will, in ten years, be an asset that will lighten the prospect which every teacher faces, of being in due time dropped from the roll as out of date with new fads and methods in education that are growing in favor, but with which the practical, sober-minded teacher is not in sympathy.

The prospect of outdated usefulness is appalling to a wage-earner, whose daily necessities absorb all, or nearly all the returns of his or her labor. This is espe- cially true of persons of thrifty nature. To these the small investment made during the earning period is the one assurance of comfort in the evening of life. A well-cultivated tract of a few acres is perhaps the ideal surety in such cases. It carries a promise of maintenance in a simple, independent way.

Encouraging in connection with this venture of teachers is the experience of Professor J. L. Dumas, ex-president of the Washington Horticultural Society and for many years a teacher. To a "liking for a good mellow apple" he ac- credits the rare good fortune that has taken him from the ranks of poorly-paid pedagogues and made him a retired apple-grower. Unable to find apples suited to his taste in past years, he conceived the idea of raising them. He accordingly invested $3,000, the savings of twenty years in school-teaching, in 140 acres of apple land near Dayton, Washington. Some twenty years later he sold his orchard for $150,000, having in the meantime profited to the extent of $125,000 from the sale of apples growing on the land. Relative success with a five-acre tract of good apple land contiguous to a growing market would settle the question of support in retirement — whether from age, inclination or dismissal, for many a teacher who wonders what she will do to maintain herself when the time that is surely coming comes."

THE PRUNE INDUSTRY.

It was stated by an agricultural journal in 1886, that at that time there was a larger acreage planted in prunes in Oregon than all other fruits combined. This was probably over-stating the matter. But as the first commercial prune orchard in all the three states of Oregon, Washington and Idaho was planted by Dr. J. R. Cardwell, within two miles of this city, and as Portland has been the center of the prune industry of Oregon and Washington, it is a necessary part of this history.

Dr. Cardwell planted his first thousand prune trees in 1871, and kept increas- ing his acreage for several years. S. A. Clarke of Salem, planted a prune orchard in 1875. A. W. Hiddon, planted the first prune orchard in Washington in 1877. But the planting of prunes on an extensive scale, did not commence until 1886. Then the prune fever captured whole communities, notably that of Clarke County, Washington, across the Columbia from this city ; where there are h undreds of



thousands of fine prune trees. The crop of prunes in Oregon in the year 1894 was two and a half milhon pounds. This last year it was twenty-eight million pounds.

THE WALNUT INDUSTRY.

Within the past six years a great interest has been aroused in the vicinity of Portland in the cultivation of French walnuts. Col. Henry E. Dosch, himself a native of France, has done a great work in enlightening the American people on this fruit.

The so-called "EngHsh" walnut originated in Persia, where it throve for many centuries before it was carried to Europe — to England, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy — different varieties adapting themselves to each country. The name "walnut" is of German origin, meaning "foreign nut." The Greeks called it "the Royal nut" and the Romans, "Jupiter's acorn," "Jove's nut," the gods having been supposed to subsist on it.

The great age and size to which the walnut tree will attain has been demon- strated in these European countries ; one tree in Norfolk, England, 100 years old, 90 feet high, and with a spread of 120 feet, yields 54,000 nuts a season; another tree, 300 years old, 55 feet high, and having a spread of 125 feet, yields 1,500 pounds each season. In Crimea there is a notable walnut tree 1,000 years old that yields in the neighborhood of 100,000 nuts annually. It is the property of five Tartar families, who subsist largely on its fruit.

In European countries walnuts come into bearing from the sixteenth to the twenty-fourth year; in Oregon, from the eighth to the tenth year; grafted trees, sixth year.

The first walnut trees were introduced into America a century ago by Span- ish Friars who planted them in southern California. It was not until compara- tively recent years that the hardier varieties from France adapted to commercial use, were planted in California and later in Oregon.

English walnuts for desert, walnut confectionery, walnut cake, walnuts in candy bags at Christmas time — thus far has the average person been introduced to this, one of the greatest foods of the earth. But if the food specialists are heard, if the increasing consumption of nuts as recorded by the government bureau of imports is consulted — in short, if one opens his eyes to the tremendous place the walnut is beginning to take among food products the world over, he will realize that the walnut's rank as a table luxury is giving way to that of a neces- sity; he will acknowledge that the time is rapidly approaching when nuts will be regarded as we now regard beefsteak and wheat products. The demand is already so great that purveyors are beginning to ask where are the walnuts of the future to come from ?

In 1902, according to the department of commerce and labor, we imported from Europe 11,927,432 pounds of EngHsh walnuts; each year since then these figures have increased, until in 1906 they reached 24,917,023 pounds, valued at $2,193,653. In 1907 we imported 32,590,000 pounds of walnuts and 20,000,000 more were produced in the United States. In Oregon alone there are consumed $400,000 worth of nuts annually.

The Prince Walnut Grove of Dundee, Yamhill county, thrills the soul of the onlooker with its beauty, present fruitfulness and great promise. Lying on a magnificent hillside, the long rows of evenly set trees — healthy, luxurious _ in foliage, and filled with nuts — present a picture of ideal horticulture worth going many miles to see. There is not a weed to mar the perfect appearance of the well-tilled soil ; not a dead limb, a broken branch, a sign of neglect or decay. In all 200 acres are now planted to young walnuts, new areas being added each sea- son. From the oldest groves, about forty-five acres, the trees from twelve to fourteen years old, there was marketed in 1905, between two and three tons of walnuts; in 1906 between four and five tons;^in 1907 ten tons were harvested, bringing the highest market price, 18 and 20 cents a pound wholesale, two cents



more than California nuts. The crop for 1908 was at least one-third heavier than for 1907. One tree on the Prince place, a Mayette, that has received extra cul- tivation, by way of experiment, now twelve years old, has a spread of thirty-eight feet, and yielded in its eleventh year, 125 pounds of excellent nuts.

While it is generally found that seedling trees properly treated come into bearing the eighth year, this crop is usually light, doubling each successive season for seven or eight years. From then on there is a steady increase in crop and hardiness for many years. Often trees in Oregon bear in their sixth year; while there are mstances on record of trees set out in February, bearing the following autumn. This is no criterion, however, merely an instance illustrating the un- usual richness of Oregon soil, and its perfect adaptibility to walnut culture.

THE WALNUT MARKET.

The very fact that in 1907 Oregon grown walnuts commanded several cents a pound higher price than those grown elsewhere indicated their market value. When ordinary nuts sold for 12 and 16 cents a pound, Oregon nuts brought 18 and 20 cents.

New York dealers who cater to the costliest trade throughout the United States, and who have never handled for this purpose any but the finest types of imported nuts, pronounced the Oregon product satisfactory from every stand- point — finely flavored, nutty, meaty and delicious. They were glad to pay an extra price to secure all that were available.

In the home market the leading dealers of Portland and northwest cities readily dispose of all the Oregon walnuts obtainable at an advanced price. In fact, the Oregon walnut has commanded a premium in every market into which it has been introduced.

WHO SHOULD PLANT.

Like the apple business, the sale of lands for walnut plantations has been actively pushed for several years, and all sorts and conditions of men and women have been urged to put their savings into this new industry.

The walnut agent literature is extensive and interesting. From one of their booklets edited by J. C. Cooper we take the following extract :

"Professional men and women, business men and women, those living in the cities and towns and confined to offices, stores and factories, will find an invest- ment in forty or fifty acres of walnut land at the present time wholly within their possibilities. Special terms can be arranged and their groves planted and cared for at small cost. While they are working their groves will be growing toward maturity, and in less than a decade, they may be free from the demands of daily routine; the grove will furnish an income, increasing each season until the twen- tieth year, and will prove the most pleasant kind of old age annuity, and the richest inheritance a man could leave his children.

The practical farmer, or the inexperienced man who desired to escape the tyranny of city work by way of the soil, will find that a walnut grove ofifers an immediate home, a living from small fruits and vegetables while his trees are maturing, and at the end of eight or ten years the beginning of an income that will every year thereafter increase, while the labor exacted will gradually lessen until it amounts to practically nothing. Like rearing children, a walnut grow- er's troubles are over with the trees' infant days.

The capitalist can find no better place for his money than safely invested in Oregon walnut lands ; the rise is certain and near."

B. M. Lelong, secretary of the California state board of horticulture, wrote in 1896:

"California growers have had a long and varied experience with many fail-

ures, and when they finally began to place their walnuts on the market they were

H. C. ATWELL President of the State Horticultural Society obliged to accept the humilating price of from 3 to 6 cents a pound less than that paid for imported walnuts."

In Oregon the reverse is true. Our walnuts command a price above that paid for walnuts raised anywhere else. The size, cracking out quantity, delicate flavor and delicious creamy taste, are the qualities that give the Oregon walnut its surpassing excellence.


PROFITS OF FRUIT RAISING.

Hood River, Ore., Sept. 14, 1910.—Dr. W. R. Colley reports the largest yield of Gravenstein apples in the valley. He packed 251 boxes from eight 14-year-old trees It will be interesting to know that the fruit sold for $1.50 per box, or at the rate of $47.06 per tree. At this rate an acre containing 60 Gravenstein trees would bring in a gross return of between $2,500 and $3,000.

The average net profits to the farmer in raising strawberries m the vicinity of Portland this season of 1910 has been two hundred dollars an acre, counting nothing for the labor of the farmer producing the crop.

Profits on acres of the fancy varieties of apples—Spitzenbergs and Yellow Newtowns—in both Hood River and Rogue River valleys have been m orchards well taken care of, ranging from six hundred to one thousand dollars an acre. Cornice pears in Rogue River valley have produced even greater profits.

Discussing this question in a conservative tone, the Daily Oregonian of September 10, 1910, says:

"Let us look at this more closely. Orchards and orchard lands in Oregon are in a class by themselves. When orchards in bearing in organized or developed districts and therefore planted not less than seven years ago, realize from $500 to $900 an acre for their fruit, year by year, or even more, no one counts or at least ought to, object to a price based on four years produce. And yet one rarely hears of more than $2,000 an acre being asked for bearing orchards. In well cared for modern orchards there seems no sign of or reason for the trees growing old and wearing out for many a year to come. Nor does there appear any probability of the market being outrun by production. Good orchards in Oregon, then, must be good to buy and to live on.


STATISTICS.

The apple crop in all the states east of the Rocky mountains is Packed in barrels and sold by the barrel. The fruit crops of the states west of the Rocky mountains are all packed in boxes, and sold by the box. The box is much han^^-J and better than a barrel. And the fruit box now m universal "^e m the Facihc states was designed and developed in Oregon, and manufactured first at MUwau kie for Luelling, Meek and Lambert.

Fruit crops in Oregon for 1906, 7, 8 and 9.

APPLES. -^ ,

Boxes Value

.. 1,082,200 $1,423,800

^907 1,310,000 1,215,000

^900 1,100,000 1,350.000

1909 '

PEACHES. ^r .

Boxes. Value.

$172,750 1906 ^5 870 248,260

^907 • _ 420,000 210,000

^908 400,000 240,000

1909 ■ ■ ^

362


THE CITY OF PORTLAND


PEARS

Boxes, Value.

1906 $276,250

1907 247,760 286,600

1908 272,000 134,500

1909 275,000 145,000


CHERRIES.

Pounds Value

1907 5459.000 $230,500

1908 4,950,000 165,000

1909 4,500,000 175,000


PRUNES.

Pounds. Value.

1906 $ 693,500

1907 25,454,185 12,098,925

1908 16,500,000 850,000

1909 28,000,000 950,000

Oregon prunes are exported to England and other foreign countries. 80 per cent of the Italian prune crop of the country is produced in Oregon. The average annual crop of prunes is about 27,000,000 pounds of dried prunes, and from one hundred to one hundred and fifty carloads of fresh prunes. An acre of prunes produces from five to seven tons,

WALNUTS.

The walnut industry alone has great possibility. Already two thousand acres have been set out, and the crops already produced are of a quality which even surpasses the famous walnut of southern France. More than 8,000 acres have been sold for planting this season, and the Willamette valley is destined to be one of the great walnut regions.

FRUIT CANNERIES.

Number 14

Value of plant $176,500.00

Number of employes 359

Amount of wages $10,453.00

Total output for 1907, cases 896,350


CONDITIONS OF HORTICULTURE.

In the last decade Oregon has gained more honors and medals for its fruit than any other state in the Union. It swept these away from all competitors at the national expositions at Chicago, at Buffalo, at Charleston and elsewhere. At Buffalo, Oregon won eighteen gold medals for its horticultural, pomological and viticultural exhibits. At Charleston it gained thirty-four gold and fourteen sil- ver, as well as one bronze medal for its fruit exhibit. At St. Louis, Oregon won thirty-seven gold medals, one hundred and fifty-two silver medals, and seventy- two bronze medals, as also three grand prizes, making a total of 294 medals and grand prizes.

The agency most efficient in bringing about this great success, prosperity and national fame in horticulture for Oregon, has been the Oregon State Horticul-

tural Society, organized first in 1877, and reorganized in 1885 — twenty
SWIFT AND COMPANY MEAT PACKING PLANT, COVERING ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY ACRES
ago. A few patient and persevering men who believed Oregon would excel the world on fruit, got together and gave their time and money to educate their neighbors, and the people of the state. Many a man who has plodded along raising wheat or potatoes making a brave living, might have been rich now if he had heeded the advice of these pioneers in horticulture.

The present officers of the society are: H. C. Atwell of Forest Grove, president; J. R. Shepard of Portland, vice-president; Frank W. Power of Portland, secretary. Annual membership dues, one dollar.

LIVE STOCK AND MEAT CONSUMPTION.

Portland is the great livestock center of the Pacific coast. As these lines are being penned, a great livestock show is being held on the grounds of the Country Club near Portland. A single item may show the widespread interest in this exhibition. Notwithstanding there are 3,000 automobiles in the city, and hundreds of auto trucks, delivery wagons and taxicabs, yet the interest in fine horses is shown by an exhibition of three hundred thoroughbred horses of all classes. Cattle are equally represented; and the aggregate value of these pure bloods will not fall short of $250,000.

Within the past year the Portland Union Stock Yards have handled 8,448 carloads of fat stock, shipped to this point for meat slaughtering purposes; the total value of which is $8,335,000. This stock is made up of seventy-eight thousand head of beef cattle, fifty-five hundred calves, one hundred and forty thousand mutton sheep, and eighty thousand head of fat hogs.

Portland Union Stock Yards is the only central livestock market west of Denver and St. Paul, where a farmer or stock raiser can ship fifty carloads of stock suitable for slaughter and get the top prices for his property. All the stock enumerated has come in by rail from points all over Oregon, Washington and Idaho, and represents the great interest producing cattle and wool on the public lands in these states, as well as the farmers raising hogs and veal on clover and alfalfa forage in connection with the offal from dairies and cheese factories.

Half of the stock received at the yards was taken by local buyers, and the remainder was bought by packers and butchers in the northwest. Portland is now firmly established as the central livestock market in this part of the United States.

The following gives what for the time is regarded as general range of value: October, 1910—Cattle—Steers, top quality, $5. 25(^5.50; fair to good, $4.00@4.75; cows, top, $4.00@4.50; fair to good, $3.00@3.75; calves, top, $6.00@7.00; heavy; $5.00@5.50; bulls, $2.50@3.50; stags, $3.00@4.00. Hogs—best, $10.00 @10.40; fair to good, $9.00@9.50. Sheep—top wethers, $4.00@4.25; fair to good, $3.00@3.75; ewes, ½c less on all grades; lambs, $4.50@5.50.

To further show the development of this business, the extent to which money has recently been invested, must be considered. Something over a year ago, the great meat packing house of Swift & Co., from Kansas City in the state of Kansas, entered the field of this industry at Portland, by purchasing 150 acres of land on Columbia slough, an arm of the Columbia river, adjoining this city, as the foundation of a great packing house plant on the Pacific coast. Since making the purchase, the company has been actively developing its property for the purposes intended by the erection of extensive buildings, stock yards, railroads, and filling the low lands with sand pumped out of the river, spending altogether over a million and a half of dollars in this enterprise. When all their works are completed, it will be one of the most perfect establishments of its kind in the world. And to show the manifold uses and purposes the carcass of a domestic animal is now put to, the following list is given:

From the hide comes leather, from which, in addition to your shoes, are taken the belts which you use in your mills; from tallow, soap, glycerine, butterine, lubricator and candles; from blood, albumen, fertilizer and stock food; from the tankage, which includes all manner of "refuse," fertilizer and stock food; from the hoof comes buttons, hair pins, fertilizer, glue and fancy goods; from the oleo, oil, butterine and packages for putty, lard and snuff; from the tail, compound lard; from the intestines, sausage castings, gut skin hose and snuff packages; from the weasands, sausage casing, brewers' hose and snuff packages; from the bladder, casings and packages for putty, lard, snuff; from the tail, hair for mattresses and upholstering; from the bones, buttons, glue, handles and fancy goods; from the neat's foot oil, polish, leather dressing, lubricant and illuminant; from the bone comes bone meal, stock food, fertilizer, material for tempering steel, anhydrous ammonia and glue. The tongue, cheek, brain, lips, heart, liver, tail, sweet breads and tripe are all sold for meat. There is nothing wasted but the water or moisture in the carcass.

Besides this great establishment, there are several others not so large, but quite as active, as enterprising and useful to the community.