Oregon wants population. An immigration of five thousand farmers with their families would be gladly received in Oregon every year for many years, and homes could be found them in this valley. At this time farms and lands can be purchased as low as at any time for ten years past. Not a thirtieth part of the fine lands of the Willamette Valley are in a state of cultivation. They are mostly claimed, but these claims can be purchased on very favorable terms--at from $4 to $10 an acre, depending upon location, improvements and adaptability of the land for farming purposes. Not long since we heard a man offer a section of land about twenty-five miles from this city for the cost of the fence that surrounded it.
    These facts may be easily explained to our eastern readers (and for whose benefit we indite this article). When the great immigrations of 1851-'52-'53 came into this valley they found it in virgin beauty. The valley, clothed with its rich native grasses, was a paradise for stock. The immigrants made their claims [and] some improvements, cultivated a few acres of land, but the raising of stock was their chief agricultural business. The discoveries of gold were made in California--many of the ardent left their farms to seek it--they returned with gold--gold came in from California for stock and produce, for which almost fabulous prices were paid. Labor was at [an] exorbitant price--money was abundant. Every man had gold who made the proper effort to obtain it. This state of things begat a system of carelessness, if not extravagance, in matters of home economy, which was sure to tell on the prosperity of the country in time. The Indian war then broke out, and on a single day the savages struck a blow upon our settlements in Southern Oregon Eastern Oregon and in Washington Territory, and even in all this valley there was a sense of danger from the rifle, knife and torch of the savages, who were all around and among us. Government troops and means were entirely inadequate to meet this state of things. Excited by the outrages of the savages and their known practice of continuing their barbarities until met and punished, the men of this valley seized their arms at the call of the authorities, left their farms and families to undergo the risk and toils of hunting and fighting these savages in their wilderness fastnesses. The government, entirely without means to purchase the necessary horses, forage, provisions and other necessary material, procured them on scrip, which immediately depreciated at a ruinous rate. The people of this territory, under these circumstances, parted with stock, provisions [and] goods cheerfully to meet the pressing wants of the troops and the demands of the authorities. This stock, provisions and goods were the means of the people of the territory and on which they had based their calculations to do business, to live and prosper in their different employments. Oregonians know the further history of this matter and which, whenever adverted to at Washington, should crimson the cheeks of our public men. Know then, ye who sit in high seats of power, ye have robbed the people here of the means to build up and make prosperous this distant portion of the republic, for which you claim to have a high regard. So far as in you lay, you have paralyzed and crushed the business and the hopes of this country. Twice six millions would not place this country in the condition it would have been had the government done its honest duty to our people.
    The Indian war closed, the country was comparatively poor. The agricultural resources of California were in a rapid condition of development. Many young men left for her inviting gold fields. Labor, and that not reliable, could only be had here at high prices. The result was [that] the attention of farmers was devoted to the raising of stock, which required little labor, and as the only branch of agriculture which would pay well. The wild herbage of this valley is rich in nutrition--it will fatten cattle so that they will compare with the best stall-fed beef of the States--but the wild herbage has become insufficient to feed the immense herds of this valley. The cultivated grasses would add ten times to its capability of sustaining stock--but to fence the pasture grounds, to plow them and to put in the grass seed in a manner to make it grow successfully is too much labor for a class of our farmers, and some have gone, and many will go when they can sell their farms, with their stock and families, to enjoy the illimitable range east of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington Territory.
    There is, too, an unsteady and unstable disposition, the result of circumstances by which we are surrounded, which prevents the exercise of that healthy and continued industry which makes the best citizens, pleasant homes, happy families, good schools and the getting up and sustaining [of] other institutions which are for the highest well being of society. If a report is sent into circulation that gold had been found on Goose Creek, it soon increases into particulars of astounding discoveries, the excitable become excited, ponies, pack saddles, flour, bacon, tin kettles and tin pans are in requisition, and the gold hunters are soon seen wending their way, day after day, to the wonderful banks of Goose Creek. Arrived there, they find that other geese have been there before them. They manage to dispose of their outfit, return no wiser than when they left, and are ready to listen to reports of silver mines at the headwaters of the Santiam, gold in the Blue Mountains, or gold quartz on Klamath Lake, and to go again as soon as they can make a raise. Was it ever known that such men ever did much in improving a country, or more than one case in a thousand in benefiting themselves?
    It will be constantly borne in mind, however, that there are farmers in this valley who have made money under all the circumstances of the times. They formed the purpose when they came here to make themselves homes and by a steady course of industry to secure a competence, and they have done the first and are in a fair way of accomplishing the last. These farmers will not tell you that "hogs eat their own heads off" when bacon is worth sixteen cents a pound, that "it won't pay to market eggs when they are only worth thirty cents a dozen," that "chickens can't be raised for forty cents each," that "it won't pay to milk cows in winter when butter is only worth seventy-five cents a pound" and that "wheat won't pay to raise at a dollar." The farmers we speak of don't talk in this way. They raise a variety of crops. They make a nice little sum from their poultry and dairy. Their barns are well supplied with food for animals, and they have stores of food for themselves. It rarely happens that they do not have something to sell that pays well, and they "go on their way rejoicing."
    The remarks we have now made will show why farmers have not uniformly succeeded here, and we shall present some facts in addition to those already given why lands and farms can be bought in this valley sufficient to furnish farms for a large increase to our farming population. The early settlers, who were heads of families, received donations of 640 acres of land. Subsequently the donations were reduced to 320 acres. Scarcely one case in a thousand can be found where a settler has improved all the lands donated to him. Settlers held onto the lands, expecting that they would rise in value and that they would make money by the sale of them. They find that the lands are not worth as much as they were years ago, that by refusing to sell they have kept out population, prevented improvements, made themselves poor, and with many of them now selling is not now a matter of choice but of necessity. We repeat that lands and farms can now be purchased in the Willamette Valley at fair prices.
    The Willamette Valley has a very diversified surface. In some portions there are extensive prairies, in others small prairies and groves of timber, and in others hills and small valleys--the hill rising, in some places, in a distance of a mile and a half to a height of 500 feet, with a fine soil to the very top. As a general fact, the soil of the Willamette Valley is not equal in fertility to that of the best prairies of the western states, but is a fair soil, and there is a great certainty in obtaining crops when they are well cultivated. Rarely is the wheat crop injured by winter, and never to any great extent. Other small grains do equally well. The northern varieties of corn have been known to yield fair crops. The vegetables common to these latitudes succeed well here. As a fruit country, we know of none to compare with it. We have good peaches--perhaps not the best, but our apples, pears, plums [and] cherries cannot be excelled. In bearing fruit, the trees have a wonderful precocity. The second year after transplanting we have known little apple trees so much loaded with fruit that they had to be supported by stakes on every side. In the garden attached to this office there is an apple tree which produced in the third year after being planted out eight bushels and seven pounds of apples.
    The climate is very favorable to the raising of stock. In early times the running stock was never fed. No prudent farmer will neglect to make provision for feeding them when it shall be necessary. Sheep do wonderfully well in this country. We learn that they are not subject to any disease. A farmer living some few miles west of this city told us a few days since that he had wintered sixty-five sheep the last winter at a cost of less than five dollars.
    We spent some little time the last winter with farmers in this state. They were originally from Ohio, New York, Indiana, Missouri and Illinois. They all professed to be satisfied with the country and had no desire to leave it for any they had seen. They liked its soil and climate and felt themselves at home. They desired to see more immigrants coming in and the country improving more rapidly. We advise no man to break up his thriving, comfortable, happy home in the East to come here. But there are men and families there, eking out an uncomfortable existence, who, living here, and practicing the same industry that they do there, could not fail of succeeding in gratifying their reasonable hopes. To all such we say--come. You will meet a people glad to welcome you.
    Oregon, for causes we have enumerated, has been under a cloud. We think we see signs of its passing away. There is an increasing energy and ambition applied to agriculture. It will tell on the prosperity of the county in a single year. Supplying all our demands for food, with much to spare, it will stop money from going out of this state and cause money to come in. Industry and Economy should be our motto. It will carry us through this great money crisis. Nature has destined this Willamette Valley to be filled with population. From its physical condition--a valley running for hundreds of miles parallel and at a little distance from the ocean--embracing all the country in Oregon that can sustain a dense population--with abundance of water, rich in timber and minerals, healthy to a proverb, and with a climate for much of the year unsurpassed in loveliness--we think we do not claim too much when we say that before many years will elapse it will be the acknowledged gem of the Pacific coast.
Weekly Oregonian, Portland, May 12, 1860, page 1


    CROPS.--Southern Oregon will not produce large crops of wheat this year. Many persons assign the early commencement and long continuance of the rains of the past fall and winter, which prevented the farmer from preparing and seeding his ground, as the reason. Others declare that there is no use of throwing away labor to produce wheat, when there is so large a quantity on hand and the price of flour so nominal--why not wait until the scarcity increases the price? The latter argument or suggestion is not original with Southern Oregon, it having had its origin in the Webfoot district, located far north of this, and, perhaps, as fine a grain-growing country as can be found on the Pacific Slope; yet from its earliest settlement it has been the general custom of the farmers and settlers to abstain from the production of any of the necessaries of consumption until the price would justify a full compensation for the labor required to produce or obtain the commodity; hence, in many cases, the farmer turned his grain fields into pastures, because he could not realize a price for wheat and other products; the stock raiser even ceased to make butter for his own family's use, and turned his cattle all out to run wild together, thus depending upon the growth and the increase of his stock for a support and income; and in many cases the farmer has been compelled to ship his flour, potatoes and cabbage from California--the stock raiser his butter and cheese, when, in fact, he owned from 50 to 100 milch cows. This is no romance but a simple statement of stubborn facts. Our advice to the farmers of Southern Oregon is not to be deterred from producing your regular annual crops on account of low prices. A market may be found when you have your granaries full to overflowing, which will add much to your wealth and prosperity, and a regular low price is better than to have nothing to sell.--Sentinel.
Oregon City Enterprise, Salem, April 13, 1867, page 4

    We are now in the matchless and magnificent Willamette Valley, fifty miles wide, one hundred and fifty long, watered and timbered like a park, and capable of being turned into one unbroken field of grain. The cold, clear river, with its fringe of balsam and fir, winds directly through its length; while, on either hand, far back in the clouds, loom mountains, black in their forests of eternal green. Here, if a man sows, he shall surely reap, while many even reap who do not sow at all, for a succession of volunteer crops is no new thing. Here the seasons never fail. That reliable individual, known as the oldest inhabitant--who, I believe, makes his home in Oregon--fails to remember a time, in the last half century, when this prolific valley failed the husbandman. Here, on the river, at the head of navigation, is Eugene City--a dear, delightful town among the oaks, but slow and badly "hidebound." It needs a good shaking up, wants someone who has the courage, and is enough its friend, to tell it of its sins. Here are six great church buildings--never half filled--and hardly two decent school houses. Here is a great army of boys growing up, proficient chiefly in the mysteries of "kissing bees" and "country dances." No trades, no professions, no education to speak of, nothing but helpless dependence on the "old man." This is a representative interior town. After awhile, the keen, cultivated Yankee will come along and push these young men off the track, out of their homes, back into the mountains, and they will murmur some, and wonder how it is, but should not complain. [pages 305-306]

    The following is from the Ashland Tidings:
    Probably no country on the face of the globe is more favorable to the development of the genuine mossback than is our fair share of Oregon. Throughout the Willamette Valley you find the species in its perfection--hard, tough moss on the back, living in moss-covered cabins, with cobwebs in the loft and cobwebs in the skull--utterly unable to comprehend how anything can change from the way it has always been in Oregon, or how any change can be of advantage.
    "The country has too many people now, and there ain't nothing for 'em to do, and they can't make a livin', and you can't sell nothin', and you couldn't raise it if you could sell it, and it don't pay nohow, and land ain't worth what it was, and Oregon ain't no good nohow." And the only comfort the creature has is in listening to the croaking of his own dismal voice and occasionally frightening a stranger away with an ominous sound.
    There are some pretty fair specimens of the croaking mossback in southern Oregon, and his croak is occasionally heard on the streets. He is the bane of enterprise and progress and the most provoking part of the heavy inertia that must be moved by the few people of genuine enterprise and life in every community. It is always a source of gratulation when he can be induced to take himself and his moss and croaks off to afflict some other place, and our own community has experienced such welcome relief in one or two instances recently. The vacancy left is always very small and easily filled with more valuable material.
    Somebody should invent some method of inducing mossback emigration from Oregon--it would be worth millions to the state. But probably the invention is not so badly needed after all, for the mossback will soon be crowded out anyhow. He has been pretty nearly exterminated in many portions of California, and the rush and swirl of enterprise is coming in over the borders of our state, too. This will soon kill the mossback. He can't endure activity.
Daily Morning Astorian, March 27, 1887, page 4


    A little boy, who got in as a way passenger, told me that they do not waste ammunition on these big-eared fellows [jackrabbits] at all, but simply knock them over with clubs. Yet bear in mind they are delicious food for the best part of the year. What a paradise for these lazy people!
    Yes, I say to the homeless stranger far away, "Come and settle here." You can find plenty of land here unclaimed. I do not say that you will find the richest of land close to the railroad really waiting for you. But plenty of pure water, a mild and most healthful climate, plenty of wood--too much wood, in fact--game, as explained before, and grass as green as Erin all the year through for your cows. Bear in mind this is in extreme Southern Oregon. And please bear in mind also that Oregon is a very large state, with climate, soil and temperature of almost all altitudes and latitudes. But for a lazy man, or a man who cares only to hunt and fish and read and rest, I know of no land so entirely delightful and suitable as this spot here among the shiftless people of Southern Oregon, who refuse to wake up even for the scream of the new railroad. The fact is, they have lived so easily and lazily here ever since they drove the Indians out that, like the Mexicans, they have all gone down at the heel.
Joaquin Miller, "He Writes a Letter from Oregon's Southern Edge," Oregonian, Portland, May 1, 1887, page 2