276 
quantities, and few of the mines are worked at present. The mountains are 
heavily timbered with fir, cedar and pine; the hills with oak and other decid- 
uous trees. 
4. Vegetables, fruit, and hay are the principal crops in Columbia, and are eul- 
tivated with success in large quantities and with profit. Vegetables and fruit 
are also largely and profitably grown, together with general crops, in Multno- 
mah; whilst in Lane wheat is the staple, but oats and potatoes are successfully 
grown. Wheat yields from 20 to 30 bushels to the acre, and often weighs 62 
to 64 pounds per bushel. Oats are superior; 25 to 40 bushels per acre; weigh- 
ing 36 to 40 pounds to the bushel. Peas grow well, but are troubled with the 
bug or fly. Corn yields a fair crop, not very large, but of good quality. 
Barley does very well. Our Douglas reporter says : 
Wool is the crop and sheep the specialty in this valley. Fine wool sheep have been 
mostly sought; but owing, as farmers suppose, to the long-continued rains of winter, sheep 
of the merino grades are not so healthy as the straight-wooled varieties, which now seem to 
be favorites. 
White winter wheat and common red-chaff spring wheat are grown in 
Columbia; but the white is preferred as making the best flour. It is almost 
impossible to sow spring wheat, on account of the rain, so as to ripen in season 
to harvest before the fall rains set in. White wheat is also preferred in Mult- 
nomah for the same reasons. The Rio Grande, Club, and Mediterranean are 
grown in Lane, but the winter varieties are mostly raised. The winter wheat 
is sown in August and September, and the spring seed in March and April, as 
most practicable. Harvest commences the middle of July with the fall-sown 
crop, and extends into September for the spring grain. The seed is chiefly 
sowed broadcast; much being sowed after the plough and harrowed in. Our 
Douglas correspondent says that— 
Owing to expensive transportation no more grain, fruit, or vegetables are raised than are 
needed for home consumption. Of wheat the Oregon smooth-head is preferred as best suited 
te the soil and climate; the fairest staple and about as productive as any other; sown 
broadcast any time from September to March when the ground is in order to receive it. 
6. Our Columbia correspondent says that timothy and white clover grow almost 
spontaneously, he having a field of clover and timothy mixed (five acres) upon 
which no grass-seed was ever sown, except what may have been scattered by 
the birds and the cattle, from which he has cut annually, since 1861, three and 
a half tons per acre. Orchard grass and blue grass also do well, Cattle can 
subsist upon pastures all the year, except when the ground is covered with 
snow; expense about 50 cents per month per head. Stock will do well upon 
pastures alone about eight months of the year, as reported from Multnomah, 
where the cost per head, upon tame pastures, is estimated at about $12 per head 
for the season. In Lane the pastures are mostly what is called bunch grass, 
together with some of the larger kind of marsh grass, so common in the western 
States, though not so rank; but, being thick in the ground, yields good feed, 
excepting when injured by summer drought. About six weeks in winter and 
the same in summer dry weather the feed is short, but the rest of the year stock 
ean do very well. The cost of pasture ranges from 75 cents to $2 per month, 
the latter for convenient pastures near towns. Young stock is allowed to range 
upon unfenced lands. In Douglas the bunch grass on the hills and a variety 
of red-top in the valleys are the most valuable wild grasses. Almost all the 
tame grasses succeed, but timothy above all others. 
7. Apples, peaches, pears, plums, cherries, quinces, berries in variety, grow 
abundantly, and our correspondents claim superiority for their State in the cul- 
ture of fruits adapted to that latitude. Our Lane reporter writes as follows : 
For most kinds of fruit this country is very good indeed. Apples and pears do the best ; 
peaches tolerably ; cherries, though uncertain, are a good crop. The small fruits do exceed- 
ingly well—gooseberries, currants, Lawton blackberries, and black and red Antwerp rasp- 
berries yield profusely. Strawberries are a very singular crop; when they fruit, they yield 
