SOUTHERN OREGON.

LITTLE LAND FOR FARMING.

AN EQUABLE CLIMATE.

A FORTY-NINER.

W.W.

LETTER FROM OREGON.

M. DEAN.

FROM PORTLAND TO ASHLAND.

Editor Willamette Farmer,
    I met with Pomona Grange at Salem April 3rd. Was rejoiced to find present so many of our tried veterans, among them Bro. White of Butte Creek, and Bro. Bonney of Woodburn Grange. Spent the night pleasantly with the editor of the Willamette Farmer and family. Bro. C. is busily engaged on his farm, while our kind hostess is as ever busy in the performance of household and editorial duties. On the morning of the 4th, W.S.M. [Worthy State Master] and myself took the train for Roseburg; Bro. Owens met us at the station with a cordial greeting. W.S.O. [Worthy State Overseer] Buick and Sister B. met us on the morning of the 5th, ready as usual to labor for our Order. At 1 o'clock we held a meeting, at which W.S.M. Boise proved to his hearers the interest he so ardently feels in the agricultural portion of this rising state. Took the train at six, for Myrtle Creek, where we spent the Sabbath with Bro. and Sister Buick, enjoying our visit amid those romantic hills and fertile valley with the true Grange relish, and on Monday morning, that we might have an extended view of the country by daylight, boarded the freight train at 8:30 for Grants Pass, a distance of seventy-five miles. Having crossed the Umpqua River at Myrtle Creek, we coursed our way along its western bank, some ten or twelve miles from Cow Creek, where the railroad leaves the Umpqua and enters Cow Creek Canyon. Here we seated ourselves on top of the car that we might enjoy the delightful scenery along the creek and over the mountains. There is some mining done on the creek. Here we passed out of the farming country, and the iron horse pulled us up, up, up for miles in the canyon, through tunnels and along mountain gorges, until we came to the divide, where we passed through two tunnels and shot out to the other side of the mountain, the appearance of the entire country being changed; the mountain steeps consist of granite. The pine and manzanita bush reminded me of the gold fields of California in '49 and '50. The road follows down along the side of the mountain until it reaches Wolf Creek, where it forms a complete loop and winds its course toward Rogue River, the country being rough and almost barren. Arrived at Grants Pass, on Rogue River, about 4 o'clock. The farming land here is quite limited. This place may in the future make quite a shipping point for Josephine County, if the inhabitants can succeed in raising such products as will demand a greater price in the market than the railroad company charges for transportation.
    After spending the night, crossed the Rogue River on the 6th, and traveled some fifteen miles to Applegate Creek. Here we found a nice little valley, the lowlands producing corn and sorghum; the syrup made from it is every good. Fruit, particularly peaches, grows abundantly in this valley.
    We visited the Grange Cooperative Store, kept by Bro. Powell, for Washington Grange. They have at present a $5,000 or $6,000 stock of goods and are doing an excellent cooperative business. Spent the night most pleasantly with Bro. Basye and family. Attended Washington Grange on the 7th, and was surprised at the concourse of Patrons met in the hall, who made its walls ring with vocal and instrumental music, which delightful exercise seemed to be conducted by the sisters, who are wholehearted Grangers. W.M. [Worthy Master] Day finally called to order and Judge Boise addressed the meeting for an hour and a half, in which everyone seemed interested. Then followed the tables laden with delicious delicacies enough to satisfy a company three times its number, at which we all labored faithfully. Order being again restored, your Lecturer was requested to favor them with an address. We had a very interesting meeting and many a cheering word was spoken for the good of our Order. The Patrons of this remote locality are deserving much credit for their praiseworthy and heroic conduct, and for their indomitable perseverance, for which at every meeting they seem to realize a full compensation. With reluctance I bade adieu to friends so generous and kind.
    There having been no other appointments made in Josephine and Jackson counties, and wishing to accomplish as much as possible during our brief sojourn, the S.M. [State Master] visited as far as possible in the former, while I traversed a portion of the latter county laboring in behalf of the Grange, explaining its objects and urging upon the citizens the necessity of immediate, earnest cooperative action.
    On the 10th went up the Applegate to Poormans Creek. The country as we proceed further east seems better adapted to the raising of stock. Hydraulic mining is carried on to a certain extent, but water seems to be scarce. After traveling fifteen or twenty miles obtained a bird's eye view of Rogue River Valley proper. The lovely valley spread out before us like a rich panorama, dotted with fine farms, presented a spectacle beautiful to behold, while the grand old Siskiyou Mountains standing to the south and Mt. McLoughlin, with her eternal snowcap, and the Cascades to the east and north, seemed to say: "This is my treasured farm, trespass not."
    We proceeded about five miles into the valley, called on Bro. Mingus, last Master of Jackson Grange, who after a lengthy conversation decided that it would be best to converse with other brothers throughout the valley, which I did, spending the night with Bro. Plymale; my companion, Bro. Clappel, tarried with Bro. Walker. April 11th. Bro. Walker took his team and hack, and we visited the farmers in various sections of the valley, while Bro. Clappel returned to his home on Applegate.
    The renowned Table Rocks stand in the northwest part of the valley, and to the south is the farm of Col. Ross, whom we visited, finding him a granger both in heart and practice. His farm is in order and everything about it bespeaks taste and refinement. Found the Colonel engaged in tanning deer skins, which reminded us of early days.
    I saw large fields ready to plant to corn and sorghum. Went through Bro. Walker's mill for crushing cane and making syrup, of which he can manufacture two barrels a day. The valley has not yet produced enough for home consumption. Am informed that it grows very large upon black soil, though it is sometimes caught by frost, but always ripens upon thin soil. The yield of syrup per acre is from sixty to one hundred and twenty gallons. In my opinion the raising of sorghum is the most inviting business for farmers of Jackson County, as the manufacture of sugar would soon follow, while they could find ready market in the various sections of this large state, and we should import nothing which we can successfully raise at home. It will be necessary for fruit growers to resort to the drying and canning processes, as the freights by rail are so enormous that no profit would return to the producer upon green fruit.
    We are in hopes that there may yet be several Granges organized in Jackson County. The little town of Medford is upon the line of rail, five miles from Jacksonville and near the center of the valley, and I think ere many years will be the principal town in the county.
H. E. Hayes, Willamette Farmer, May 2, 1884, page 7   End of the letter not transcribed.


    After a very long, monotonous ride of ten days of the usual amount of roar and jolt of the train, I arrived at this place last Monday morning about 5 o'clock. When I stepped out on the platform, I saw no one I knew. I looked around, found myself a stranger in a very strange land. I was landed in Rogue River Valley. I could see the sun pushing the usual eastern light far above the mountain peaks. I noticed my time, and found I had gained about two hours and a half. Rogue River Valley is very pretty, about 30 miles wide and about 75 miles long, all nicely improved, on either side of which rise the Cascades from the beautiful lawn, higher and higher until you see snow here and there. Now and then a cloud obstructs the view, but upwards they go until they lift their venerable heads into the regions of snow and ice the year round. Mt. Pitt lifts its head far above all the rest, and is covered with snow all the year. It is about 40 miles from here, and can be seen only when the clouds are very high. The valleys all along the Oregon and California R.R. are very rich farming land. If they were to have rain as they do in the States, crops would grow so rank that much would go to waste. All farms, large or small, are called ranches. The land is of a black soil with sand enough in it so as not to be very sticky, and works very fine. There is so much nice fruit here that it is like the Garden of Eden. Crops and fruits of all kinds are advanced about as much here as the difference in time is. I am very much in love with the valleys of Oregon. Don't see how anyone could but like it here. All the country I saw between the states and the coast, Indiana, Illinois, and the valleys here are the prettiest of all.
"Letter from E. F. Merriman," Goshen Times, Goshen, Indiana, May 22, 1884, page 5


    The elevation of the valleys in Northern California is much less than I had always supposed them to be; that of Scott Valley, at Fort Jones, being only 2,875 feet, and at Etna, near its south end, only 3,125; while the altitude of Shasta Valley is less than 2,600 feet, and the town of Yreka is only 2,636 feet above the level of the sea. Even the highest altitude of the tunnel through the Siskiyou Mountain Range to be reached by the locomotive, when the railroad shall have been completed between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, is only 3,939 feet above sea level, while the general grade of the road will be low, and the greater part of the whole will run through a portion of the country where a road can be easily built. At present, the greater portion of the goods and groceries freighted into all this northern part of California
via Portland; and merchants in Yreka and Fort Jones inform me that they have their goods freighted from Portland, by rail to Ashland, and thence by teams for $15 per ton cheaper than they can get them from San Francisco via Redding, on account of the less distance they have to haul by teams. The view of the Scott Valley, from Yreka mountain, at its northern end, is picturesque in the extreme. From an elevation of about 5,000 feet you look down upon a kind of basin, about forty miles in length by about twenty miles in width, filled throughout with little mountain peaks, all covered with the deep, green foliage peculiar to pines, with the tiniest little valleys lying like rivulets between, the whole constituting a little valley of prettily rounded little mountains, surrounded on all sides by higher mountain ranges. The valley proper, which lies along Scott River, is really letter adapted, I think, for dairying and those branches of business which are naturally
than for wheat raising; but many of the farmers devote their energies entirely to the raising of wheat, and, like many of the farmers in Eastern Washington and Western Idaho, who raise wheat and try to compete with wheat raisers whose lands are much more convenient to market, nineteen out of every twenty of their farms are under mortgage, and their owners are always in debt; while they who devote themselves to dairying and to cattle raising are, I am informed, invariably in good circumstances, and many of them are very wealthy. The farms in the valley are generally small, and the valley itself is not a large one, being only about twenty-five miles in length and of an average width not exceeding three miles. Scott River, a southern tributary of the Klamath, flows through it from southeast to northwest, and furnishes constant and living waters from the highest mountains of the Coast Range, which, in this part of California assume Sierra-like proportions. The valley is supplied with four
which manage to grind the wheat raised in the valley and find a market for the flour in the surrounding country. Indeed, a market is found for all the productions of the valley, including many tons of butter, I am informed, in the mines on the west, along the Klamath and its tributaries and in the mines in Trinity County where mining is the chief and almost the only industry. The largest and most important town in Scott Valley is Etna, and the Etna Hotel is the pleasantest to stop at, but Fort Jones is the prettiest place of the two.
    Dear Times: I had written so far when the stage came along from Redding going north, and I am back, so far, on my way through Oregon again. I intend to know all about Oregon that I can learn from a live observation of it, and among other places I intend to visit Yaquina Bay before I return to Portland. From the latter beautiful city I intend to return to the more beautiful and pleasant San Jose.
Daily Morning Times, San Jose, California, August 17, 1884, page 3

    I left [Yreka] Thursday night just before midnight, and rode all the night through in the beautiful moonlight on the top of the stage, which I found much pleasanter than when I passed over the same road in the hot sun on the Saturday before; and one of the grandest and most beautiful views I ever saw I witnessed from near the top of the Siskiyou Mountains, as I looked back toward old Shasta. The sun had just risen, and shone with a strong and clear light on the immense snow fields which towered far above all the surrounding mountains and clothed the grand old monarch with a robe of the purest white. Not a dark spot could be seen on his whole glowing face, and his broad shoulders at all points were draped with the spotless ermine, while from the crown of his head down as far as could be seen, the pure white robe fell in deep folds, like the veil of
when she is led to the altar. The upper portion of Klamath Valley alone is fit for either agriculture or for grazing purposes, to any appreciable extent. From the point where the railroad will cross it to the ocean it is of but little importance except for gold mining, and not remarkably valuable for that; but Rogue River Valley, in Southern Oregon, is very fine, beautiful and productive, and possesses not only a large extent of very fine agricultural land, bordered by low mountains, covered with timber, which presents a great variety of beautiful landscapes, but it possesses several very pleasant towns, one of the prettiest among which, in location, surroundings and beautiful homes, is Ashland. This village is supposed to be prosperous for an Oregon town, because it is the terminus of the railroad from Portland, but when the Northern Cal. & Oregon connect and run cars through, it will become very dead I think. There is a greater display of good taste in many of the homes, gardens and general surroundings at Ashland than I have noticed so far in any of
in Oregon, for it contains a very few beautiful flower gardens and some well appointed and tasteful yards, and one as pretty as San Jose can boast; but, as in our own and other pretty towns, there are too many evidences of a lack of good judgment and of neglect to beautify their homes, which greatly mar the general beauty of the place. I expect to go through Oregon leisurely now again, from south to north, and when I reach beautiful Portland once more I shall return in September to the loveliest place in the United States, the "fit home for gods," San Jose, the realm of beauty.
    P.S.--It is very hot here. The mercury reaches above 90 deg. every day, and often above 100 degs.
    I am now at this famous and substantial old place, which, like Ashland, is located on the west side of the Rogue River Valley and is at about the longitudinal center of the valley. I am also stopping at the celebrated United States Hotel, where the patriotic
charged President Hayes $100 for stopping overnight, because she would never have the opportunity of presenting another bill to the President of the United States. Fortunately, the old woman is dead; and the hotel is conducted by her brother, ostensibly, but by Chinamen in fact, and like the hotels of the country generally the food placed on the table is execrable. The evidence is a fine old brick, with large rooms. The heat in the valley still ranges between 90 and 102 degrees every day, but the farmers here who raise corn extensively, and as fine crops as can be seen in Illinois or Iowa, are greatly elated over it, because their corn is growing night and day. The more I study the Rogue River Valley the better I am pleased with it. It is about thirty miles in length by an average
being fifteen or more miles in places and only three or four miles wide at other points. The surface of the valley where it is yet uncultivated is beautifully diversified by oak openings and extensive groves of oak, which remind one of the features in Napa Valley and in some parts of Santa Clara; but unlike either of those valleys, which it resembles very much in many of its features, soil and productions, Rogue River Valley is surrounded on all sides by finely timbered mountains similar to those on the west side of Santa Clara Valley. I am informed that on the west and from the northwest, and of the valley, until within ten miles of the ocean (a distance of about 80 miles from here) there is no valley land of any considerable extent; but a small valley of about 10 miles in length, and varying from 1 to 7 miles in width is formed at the mouth of the river, most of which, together with the country along the seacoast, as far south as Port Orford is well
having fine natural red clover and other nutritious grasses in great abundance, but the land is quite rolling. I noticed at Ashland nectarines, plums, prunes, peaches, cherries, (late) pears, and apples, and very many of the trees were so loaded with fruit that the branches were broken down with its weight, while other branches were held up by strong props. It seems that they never trim a fruit tree in Oregon. There is no market for the fruit. That town is right at the base of the mountain, and extends into the canyon, where a fine trout stream fed by perpetual sources comes into the valley, just large enough to supply a good water power, which is utilized for propelling a fine planing mill owned by Mr. L. S. P. Marsh, who superintended the erection of the jail at San Jose. It also supplies power for a fine flouring mill, a small saw mill and a small woolen factory. An addition to the town has been laid out near the railroad depot which is very prettily located, and where a fine view of the valley is had in every direction, except the west, where the mountains stand covered with a mantle of everlasting green. The new and prosperous town of Medford on the railroad, four miles from Jacksonville, I think promises to become the most important in the valley. It is in a country surrounded by fine oak trees and a good soil and, like the whole valley, has good and plentiful water.
Daily Morning Times, San Jose, California, August 18, 1884, page 3


    If the lower thirty miles of the Umpqua River were anywhere on the Hudson; or anywhere where it were easily accessible to the traveling public, it would be resorted to by sightseers, and people would go into ecstasies over its delightful scenery. The head of navigation on the river is at a point called Scottsburg, the original town of which was about a mile farther down the river from the present village of that name, and was wholly washed away by the high waters of 1861; and where a town containing seventeen stores, several of which were fine buildings and wholesale establishments, not a vestige now remains; and bushes and small trees now occupy the place which so few years ago was devoted to trade, and which once supplied all Southern Oregon and even Northern California as far south as Yreka with goods. Such are the vicissitudes of trade; but this change has been brought about mainly by the competition of the Oregon and California Railroad from Portland to Ashland, which only runs thirty-five miles
and now does the carrying for all Southern Oregon and moot of that of Northern California.
    The Umpqua at Scottsburg is about one-fourth of a mile wide, but increases in width as it approaches the sea, until at Gardiner, which is nine miles from the ocean, and is the heart of the deeper water navigation, the river is fully a mile in width, and appears more to be an arm of the sea than a river. The tides rise and fall about 7 feet at Gardiner and about 5 feet at Scottsburg, which is about twenty miles farther east, and so much farther from the ocean. The Coast Range at this latitude is about 50 miles wide, and the mountains are comparatively low, apparently not exceeding 1,200 or 1,500 feet at any point in the entire range of vision, and most of the little peaks seem to be less than 800 or 1,000 feet in height, but the entire range presents everywhere hundreds, and I might, I think, say thousands, of little sharp, pointed cones, each of which is a complete little mountain, and all rising from apparently the same low base. These mountlets, as they might be called, little mountains, or montecitos, as our good Spanish-speaking people would call them, are covered from bases to summits with
of green which, at this season of the year, is mixed with yellow, red, brown and other colors, which give the hilly forests enchanting varieties of color, and make one long to reach out and gather a mountain or two as you pass along, as a pretty present to some loved friend. The great body of the forests consists of fir, spruce and cedar, but a generous sprinkling of maple, oak, ash, myrtle and other trees are seen, and contribute to the beauty of the view in all directions. The mountlets seem to be formed of old gray sandstone, and this forms, not the mountlets only, but the riverbed, and one sees here no other rock. The river finds its way generally westward through the low range, which seems to stop its progress at many points, but it turns around the bases of the little mountains and increases its width by accessions of water from the sea. The trip on the little steamer Juno, commanded by Capt. Neill of Cornwall, either up or down the river, is interesting and delightful, for every moment some new and pretty view is presented, each as interesting as the one just past, like the quick changes of the well-filled kaleidoscope, while on the face
Every landscape seen above the water is mirrored with never-failing faithfulness and with increased beauty below, and one can never tire of looking at either the landscape above, or its still more beautiful reflection below the waters. The town of Gardiner is most beautifully located on the northern hank of the Umpqua, having a background of the same little mountlets, covered with a dense growth of trees and a river a mile wide lying placidly before it, with a low island towards its shore, on which the Gardiner Fish Canning Company have their cannery. Salmon commence running in this stream and in Coos River and the Coquille after they have ceased fishing in the Columbia; and although the fish are not as fine and fat as those caught in the Columbia, they are still fine and valuable fish; and 6,500 cases of salmon were canned at the Gardiner cannery last year, and they expect to can still more this fall. The fish have only just commenced running up the stream.
of salmon canned here, the Chinook, which are the largest, fattest and best, and the silver salmon. The fishermen are principally Italians, though some American boys follow the business during the season. They receive 25 cents apiece for Chinook and 20 cents apiece for silver salmon.
    Gardiner is four miles from the ocean at that point where the new and splendid steamship Tacoma was wrecked on her first trip at sea when ten lives were lost, all of whom could have been saved but for the cowardice of one Desmond who had charge of the life saving station near the mouth of the Umpqua. The steamer was wrecked on Monday of the week, and the ten men clung to the rigging until Wednesday and Thursday, when the last one fell into the breakers and was drowned. Many men offered to go out and take the doomed people off if Desmond would even let them take the lifeboat, but as
to go himself and wished to sustain a reputation for bravery, he would not permit the volunteers to take the lifeboat, and the men dropped one by one into the sea and perished before his eyes, and less than a quarter of a mile from shore.
    A long sand spit extends from the point where the Tacoma was wrecked five miles or more southward to the mouth of the river or bar; and on this sand spit in a cluster of perhaps 2,000 acres of trees, old Umpqua City was once located, and a body of soldiers was once stationed here under "Fighting Joe Hooker," to keep the Indians in awe. The point is now occupied only by half-breeds who sustain themselves by fishing. The first road from the Umpqua into the interior of Southern Oregon was limit by Gen. Hooker, and still remains as an evidence of his indomitable energy. The bar at the mouth of the Umpqua is sand and very broad on its north side; but vessels drawing more than 14 feet of water cannot
although when once in the bay there is water enough to float ships of almost any size. A beautiful beach extends from the mouth of the Umpqua to Coos Bay, a distance of about 20 miles south, and stages, etc., run regularly and daily on the beach between the two points as if on a well wet and level sand road. The soil of the country is good and productive. No finer potatoes can be raised anywhere than in the country, and grasses grow luxuriantly most of the year, but it is too hilly generally for agriculture, and dairying will probably follow the conversion of the timber into lumber. The latter interest is now in the hands of the Gardiner Mill Company who, being in the great combination to raise the price of lumber, like the rest of the combinations, have been running only one of their two mills for a long time past, and that one only on three-quarters time, yet they produce an average of 40,000 feet of lumber daily. I am glad to learn that the combination is now broken; for such combinations are contrary to sound public policy and illegal; and are formed for the purpose of forcing all the money they can out of the customers. It is better though than highway robbery, for people can get along with less lumber, but the highway robber can force out the money or take life. This country is very interesting in many ways, but I should not advise any of my friends in San Jose or elsewhere to locate in it, because they can be happier and see more of the world in many other places. If they wish to go out anywhere from here they must go in a boat.
Daily Morning Times, San Jose, California, October 8, 1884, page 3