Wallis Nash

“ We are among old friends as we ride up to Crain's to dine, and the noonday sun is hot enough for us to enjoy the cool breeze among the young firs behind the house, as we stand to wash hands and face by the bench on the side of the dairy built over the stream close by. The horses know their way to the barn, to stand with slackened sinches, and nuzzle into the sweet timothy-hay with which the racks are filled. ”

“ But Nature is busily at work repairing damages; each winter's rains penetrate more deeply into the fabric of the trunk; each winter's gales loosen yet more the roots in which the living sap was long ago destroyed; each spring the wind brings down additions to the graveyard of trees, rotting away into mold; while a few young successors to the former race of firs are showing themselves clothed in living green, and a dense growth of copse-wood, hazel, cherry, vine-maple, arrow-wood, and crab-apple is crowding the hollows of the cañons on the hill-sides. ”

“ The face of the country is vivid green, the autumn-sown wheat nearly knee-high, and the oats running the wheat a race in height and thickness. The orchard-trees close to the farmhouse we are approaching stand clothed from head to foot in flower; the pear-trees, whose branches are not now curved and bent with fruit, tower as white pyramids above the heads of the blushing apples.
Close by the orchard-fence the ewes and lambs feed, the little ones leaping high and throwing themselves away with the mere joy of warm sun and young life. ”

“ At this point Rock Creek joins the Siletz itself, which here is a wide and rushing stream, and divides the valley along its entire length into two unequal parts. The hills fall back on either side of you and lose their broken forms, becoming long slopes, draped thickly with the heavy brake-fern. Here and there stand the houses of the Indians, each with its grain- and hay-fields; while of cattle of all ages, and little groups of ponies, there is no lack.
Except in one or two instances, the houses are log-cabins, and you miss the staring white paint so common in this country. ”

“ We want none of those youngsters who have tried this, have failed in that, until their friends say in disgust, "Oh, ship them to Oregon, and let them take their chances!" We desire no younger sons of English or Eastern parents without energy or capital to start them. High birth, aristocratic connections, we value not at all, unless they carry with them the sense of responsibility to honored forefathers—the determination that the stigma of failure shall not stain a proud name. Nor do we desire those young men whose first thought is, "How shall we amuse ourselves?" ”

“ No sound reaches you in the darkness, but the recurring rattle of the sculls in the rowlocks, and the soft lapping of the tide. The lights you are seeking grow brighter, and you distinguish the glare of the fire and the moving, dim form of the fisherman. The canoe, some sixteen feet long, is boarded roughly across amidships, and on a thin layer of sand and wood-ashes burns a pine-knot fire. The Indian stands in the bows, his back to the fire; as you look, he poles himself along by driving the handle of his long spear into the sand underlying the shallow channel. ”

“ But the undergrowth is thinner as we mount; first oak-scrub and then oak-trees growing here and there, with grass all round, take the place of the copse, and the mountain air blows fresh in our faces as we near the summit. Halting for a moment to let the horses regain their breath, we turn and see the whole broad valley lying bright in sunshine far below. So clear is the air that the firs on the Cascades, forty miles away, are hardly blended into a mass of dark, greenish gray ”

“ There is many a rough, stony hill-side, where the sparse vegetation struggles for life in the crannies of the rocks. There is many a stretch of sandy, alkaline plain, where the dingy sage-brush grows, with here and there a tuft of bunch-grass; there is many a gully where the thirsty steer would look in vain for water, even in a dirt-hole, to quench his thirst. ”

“ Gazing down into the valley, with here a ferny slope, there a copse filling acres of bottom, then a deep cañon with green trees, there a beaver-dam flooding the best piece of land at every high water, and everywhere the great black trunks, standing or lying prostrate, in some places heaped together in the wildest confusion—it was a case that called for the "stout heart to the stiff brae." ”

“ We leave the copse-woods behind, and canter for miles along a gently sloping, sandy road; the hills are thick in fern and thimble-berry bush, with the polished leaves and waxy-white flowers of the sallal frequently pushing through. We have got used by this time to the black, burned trunks, and somehow they seem appropriate to the view. But the sound of the Pacific waves beating on the rocky coast has been growing louder, and as we get to the top of a long ascent the whole scene lies before us. ”

“ It is the staple product of the State, and hardly ever fails in quality. The farmers understand it; their system of life is organized with a view to it. A thousand bushels of wheat in the warehouse is as good as money in the bank, and is in reality a substitute for it. There is a clear understanding of what it costs to plant, harvest, and warehouse, and it involves the lowest amount of trouble and anxiety.
Therefore, Oregon grows wheat, and will grow it; and men will grow nothing else until the consequences are brought home to them. ”

“ I like to see them march demurely in at the open gate, and then run to the log where you have scattered a handful of salt for them, every grain and taste of which is eagerly licked up. And they are excellent brush-clearers; they love the young shoots of the cherry and vine-maple, and keep them so close down that in one or two seasons at most the stub dies, and can be plowed out and burned. Therefore every settler who takes up land, or buys a partly cleared farm, will find both pleasure and profit in his sheep, and that to him they are a necessity, even more than to the valley farmer. ”

“ Passing eastward, the great Klamath Indian reservation is reached—a tract I only know by hearsay as a land of hills and streams, of gullies and water-courses, of lava-beds and barrenness intermixed with quiet vales and dells of wondrous beauty—a land where Indian superstitions cluster thickly. The Indians are few and scattered, and this country, no doubt, ere long will be thrown open to the white traveler and hunter, to be quickly followed by the herdsman and the settler. ”

“ New lines of railway designed as feeders to the Columbia River route are being pushed to completion regardless of cost, while the trunk-line, along the side of the Columbia River, is being still urged forward by the united forces of over three thousand Chinamen and all the white laborers that can be picked up. Time alone will show how far a line, which winds and twists along the banks of the mighty Columbia in devious curves, overhung by mountain-sides loaded with loose rocks at the mercy of every winter's storms, can be trusted to carry the enormous traffic predicated for it ”

“ The present disturbed state of Ireland has, we know, prepared many of its inhabitants for emigration, and among them are many trained in the growth, the preparation, and the manufacture of flax. Any persons familiar with this industry could not do better than transfer themselves, their capital, their machinery, and their staff of workers, to this free land; here they will find a hearty welcome, a fine climate, the very best of raw material, a market at their doors, unlimited opening for expansion of their business, and a habitation free alike from turbulence, riot, and oppression. ”

“ The wood lies on both sides of us, and we mount rapidly upward. The wild-strawberry creeps everywhere along the ground, its white flower and yellow eye hiding modestly under the leaves. The catkins on the hazel-bushes dangle from each little bough. The purple iris grows thickly in the frequent mossy spots, and the scarlet columbine peers over the heads of the bunches of white flowers we knew not whether to call lilies-of-the-valley or Solomon's seal, for they bear the features of both. ”

“ The air is so clear that you see plainly the colors of the bare red rocks, and the heavy dark, fir-timber clothing their rugged sides. Ere the sun mounts high the valley often lies covered with a low-lying thin white mist, beyond and over which the mountains stand out clear. ”

“ Long before the heart is reached, a loud cracking and rending is heard. The axeman redoubles his efforts. The tree shakes and quivers through all its mass, and then the top moves, slowly at first, then faster, and down it comes, with a crash that wakes the echoes in the hills for miles and shakes the ground. Then send him into the thick brush, where the stems are so crowded that they have shot high up into the sky. Two cuts on one side, and one on the other, an inch or two from the earth, and he drops his axe, and leans all his weight against the stem. ”

“ He will walk unconcernedly through the deepest mud or the quickest flowing brook, and climb a steep hill with hardly quickened breath; if he meets a big log in the trail, he will just lift his fore-legs over it and follow with his hind-legs without touching it, and hardly moving you in the saddle. ”

“ I do not know that a stronger fact could be adduced in proof of the still wonderful fertility of this Willamette Valley than that it should be possible this year to reap a good crop, grown on ground that was neither reaped, plowed, nor rolled—nothing done but to cast abroad the seed and harrow it lightly in.
Soon after passing Lebanon, eighteen miles from here, we reached the foot-hills of the Cascades; round, swelling, sandy buttes; sometimes covered with short pasture-grass; generally bearing a growth of oak-brush, sprinkled with firs of a moderate size. ”

“ According to my ideas, it may have a moderately prosperous future, bringing down to Portland a certain quantity of freight and passengers from the upper country, and an increasing quantity as that country develops. But to suppose that on its enlarged capital it will be allowed to go on earning dividends at the same preposterous rate as heretofore its boats have made for it, is to insult the common-sense alike of the Oregon farmer and of the capitalist looking now more eagerly than ever for profitable and safe investment. ”

“ The farmer sees us coming, and scolds back the rough sheep-dog noisily barking at the strangers as he comes to his gate to shake hands. "Won't you hitch your horse and come in?" he says; "I want you to look at these bees—I have got six swarms already." And under the garden-fence stands a long, low-boarded roof, and under it a whole row of boxes and barrels, of all ages and sizes, with a noisy multitude coming and going. Straw hives are unknown, and any old tea-chest is used. Not much refinement about bee-keeping in Oregon; but honey fetches from thirty to fifty cents a pound. ”

“ Here timothy-grass is everything to the farmer. Certainly, the old-country man would open his eyes to see a crop waist-high, the heavy heads four to seven inches long, and giving two tons to the acre. And he would revel in laying aside for good and all that anxiety as to weather which has burdened his life ever since he took scythe and pitchfork in hand. We expect nothing else but dewy nights and brilliant sunshine, so that the habit is to cut one day, pile the grass into huge cocks the same day, and carry it to the barn the next. ”

“ Nash, he has taken but little advantage of this fact. His book, which he modestly styles 'a guide-book to Oregon for the intending emigrant,' is far more than this. It is a pains-taking description of the natural features of a great Pacific State; of its soil, climate, and productive qualities; of its past development and future promise; of its leading industries and its adaptation to others; in short, of all that a man who has lived in Oregon with his eyes open might be expected to find out, and all about which one who has not lived there might be expected to wish information. ”

“ One man driving the header, one each to the three wagons, two feeding and tending the thrasher, one fitting and tying up the wheat-bags as the cleaned and finished grain comes pouring from the machine, and one hand at the straw-rake, are all busily at work. Very speedily the field is cleared, and the just now waving grain lies piled in a stack of wheat-bags in the center, waiting the departure of the "thrashing crowd," to be hauled by the farmer to the warehouse. ”

“ In Northeastern Oregon, where the great crops of wheat are beginning to be grown, the farmer is at the mercy of the Transportation Company, which hitherto has sucked the oyster and left the farmer the shell. For what profit can there be in growing wheat at thirty and thirty-five cents a bushel, that same wheat being worth one hundred cents in Portland, and the difference being absorbed in freight and charges? ”

“ My own affairs, and those of many friends, both in Oregon and elsewhere, and, indeed, the successful development of this great Willamette Valley, largely depend on our convincing an unprejudiced public that Nature is on our side in the effort we are making to secure a direct and near outlet to the great world. ”

“ No one can enter the reservation, even to pass through it, or to stay a night with one of the Indians at his house, without the same leave. Work on the roads or in the fields of the reservation is at the absolute order of the agent; no corvée in ancient France could press more crushingly on the peasant than could the order of a harsh or stern agent on his charge. In the choice and erection of houses, in the furnishing and distribution of stores, in matters of internal police of all sorts, his word is law. ”