again but not runing yet, the river has fallen about 20 or 25 feet, it is near its usual level. ...
Affectionately yours,
Brother Levi
... I saw a notice in the paper today about the cattle that have died the east side of the Cascade Mountains. If I remember right it stated that about 19-20th of the cattle have died that were left, or kept at the Dalles, but farther east, there has not as many died. On the De Shoots River there was less than at the Dalles, on John Days River, less than at the De Shoots, on the Umatila, less than on John Days, etc. It snowed at the Dalles between 3 & 4 weeks every day, and the snow was two feet or more deep, and the thermometer was two degrees below zero, but farther east there was but a very little snow. The Dalles recollect are just under the Mountains, so you will see that it was much colder there than it was here. Those emegrants that got their cattle this side of the Mountains saved a most of them. People are looking up their claims now, and moving on them. Three or four families left town to day for the Chehaly River, day after tomorrow there will a number leave for Shole Water Bay, and was it not for my Doctors bill and the balance I owe for our stoves, I would start with them. It is a most time to put in garden seeds and we are anxious to get ours in, tho we intend haveing a garding here. I want to go to a part of the country where I can make the nurcery business pay. It is the best business in the country. There is a nursery here[1] &
- ↑ In the Oregonian, October 16, 1892, Seth Luelling gives an account of this nursery: "Horticulture in Oregon began in Salem, Henry County, Iowa, when my brother, Henderson Luelling, planted an assortment of the principal fruits, apples, pears, peaches, plums and cherries, loaded them into two wagons and started (1847) with them across the plains ... He transplanted his nursery almost immediately from the boxes to the land now owned by Mr. J. H. Lambert [now the site of the Waverly Country Club] between Milwaukie and Sellwood, what was then the Meek donation claim ... My brother quit the business and left Oregon in 1853, and in 1857 (?) William Meek quit, leaving me the sole owner of the Milwaukie nurseries."
