generally do well, except the Concord, which ripens deliciously ; but all the fruits above named are of superior excellence.
The very best land for fruit-raising is that which has grown a forest upon its soil. To clear it costs on an average forty dollars per acre. An orchard near the mouth of the Clackamas is planted to one hundred and twenty-three varieties of apples, fourteen varieties of pears, twelve of plums, five of prunes, three of quinces, and three of grapes, besides the small fruits, and walnuts, butternuts, and almonds.
The price of grain-land varies according to location, from five to fifty or even two hundred dollars, but fair farming-lands ten miles away from towns can be purchased at from twenty-five to forty dollars. The foot-hill lands, which are covered with hazel and other brush, and which make good fruit-farms, can be purchased cheaply. There is not any large amount of unsurveyed or government land in this part of the State, and that which remains is in the mountains. The State lands in West Oregon that were immediately available are nearly all sold off, but some pieces can still be found which are either overlooked or in the hands of speculators who do not hold them high. The coming legislature, it is thought, will increase the price of school-land, which it ought to have done years ago. The amount of government land sold in West Oregon during the year just ended was four hundred and ninety-two thousand acres,—two hundred and ninety-two thousand in and bordering on the Wallamet Valley, and two hundred thousand in Southwestern Oregon.
Columbia is the most northerly county of this division of Oregon, and really belongs to the Columbia Valley, as it faces the Columbia Biver. It is heavily timbered and mountainous, with some rich farming-lands lying along the river and on the farther side of the hills. Its forest is underlaid with coal, iron, and other minerals, which will some day make it one of the most wealthy districts of the State.
South of Columbia is Washington County,—the Tualatin Plains of the pioneers, — which is one of the oldest settled portions of Oregon, and belongs to the wheat-growing lands. Hillsboro’, the county-seat, was founded in 1850, by David Hill, one of the executive committee under the provisional govern ment of 1843. The population is about eight hundred.
