Benton County, giving it the benefit of a modified sea-breeze in the summer season. The State Agricultural College, with an endowment and considerable legislative aid, is located at Corvallis. The town is well built, and has a handsome court-house, being the county-seat. Like all Oregon towns, it has churches and schools without stint.
The face of the country in this portion of the valley is extremely picturesque and beautiful. The narrowing towards its head brings mountains, plains, and groves within the sweep of unassisted vision, and the whole resembles a grand picture. We have not here the heavy forests of the Columbia Biver region, nor even the frequently-recurring fir-groves of the middle sections. The foot-hills of the mountains approach within a few miles on either side, but those nearest the valley are rounded, grassy knolls, over which are scattered groups of firs, pines, or oaks, while the river-bottom is bordered with tall cotton-woods, and studded rather closely with pines of a lofty height and noble form.
Two tributaries enter the Wallamet between Corvallis and Eugene,—the Muddy, from the east, and Long Tom from the southwest. The country on the Long Tom is celebrated for its fertility, and for the uncompromising Democracy of its people. The school-master and the Black Bepubliean were in early times alike objects of aversion in that famous district. It is also claimed for Long Tom that it originated the term 11 Webfoot,” which is so universally applied to Oregonians by their California neighbors. The story runs as follows: A young couple from Missouri settled upon a land-claim on the banks of this river, and in due course of time a son and heir was born to them. A California “ commercial traveller,” chancing to stop with the happy parents overnight, made some jesting remarks upon the subject, warning them not to let the baby get drowned in the unusually extensive mud-puddles by which the premises were disfigured; when the father replied that they had looked out for that, and, uncovering the baby’s feet, astonished the joker by showing him that they were webbed. The sobriquet of Webfoot, having thus been attached to Oregon-born babies, has continued to be a favorite appellative ever since.
No inland town could have a prettier location than Eugene,
