But that was
“ In the olden, golden Time, long ago.”
Many a farmer sold his land, when remote from the settlements, for a merely nominal price, and went to reside in a town where he could send his children to school, in ante railroad days, thus losing the benefit the government intended to bestow upon the pioneers of this far-away region. That did not, however, prevent his “living by the copulation of cattle,” as the broad acres of the valley were unfenced for the most part, and his herds wandered whithersoever they would. Railroads are fast stamping out this primitive form of civilization, which is replaced by scientific farming, and this means confining stock to certain boundaries and providing for their subsistence. The farmer of the Wallamet Valley could not compete in stock-raising with the herders on the cheaper lands of the East Oregon ranges, because his land was too valuable for other purposes; nor could he compete with the stock-raisers on the coast ranges where grain-farming is impracticable, and where the moisture from the sea keeps green the grass and herbage the summer through.
In the early history of the valley wheat was the only cereal raised, and was used alike for food and for currency, a wheat certificate, like a silver certificate of to-day, being a legal tender, and the only money in circulation before the discovery of gold. The principal crops still are wheat, oats, and barley, in the order named. The wheat crop for 1890 in this valley is estimated at two hundred and fifty thousand tons, most of which goes to foreign parts. This large traffic in wheat began about 1870, when the first twenty miles of the Oregon and California Railroad were completed. The same ships which brought out the rails from England took back cargoes of Oregon wheat. Previous to this time farmers had hauled their grain to Portland, or to the other river towns, where it was boated to Portland and thence shipped to San Francisco. For a long time this Oregon product was shipped abroad as California wheat, and from its large size and fine appearance was a credit to the State which exported it. But, see how time makes all things even. Millers have found out that Oregon wheat is rather too soft, and is improved by mixing with California’s shrunken grain, and also that California
