OREGON. 



$12,000: Umpqua river, $6.000; Coos river, $5.000; 

 Alsea river, f3,000; Nest ucca river. $6,000; Willa- 

 mette and Yamhill. $40,000, also authorizing contract 

 aggregating $200,000 for improvement of Willa- 

 mette and construction of locks in the Yamhill ; Si- 

 uslaw, $27,000 ; entrance Coos Bay, $95.000 ; harbor, 

 Coos Bay, $14.390; Yaquina Bay, $25,000, also au- 

 thorizing contract for $1,000,000 additional ; Tilla- 

 mook Bay and bar, $17,000 ; upper Columbia, $5.000 ; 

 total for'Oregon. including amounts authorized to 

 be contracted for and the appropriations for the 

 Cascades, over $4,000,000. 



The Fisheries. The report of the State Fish 

 and Game Protector for 1895-'96 says that the great 

 fish industry in the past thirty years has provided 

 the people of Oregon with $70,000.000, and declares 

 that during the past year, notwithstanding the 

 strike, it proved Oregon's second greatest resource, 

 providing the people of the State with $2.534.240. 

 exclusive of the north shore of the Columbia. The 

 future prosperity of the salmon fishery of the Co- 

 lumbia depends largely upon artificial propagation, 

 and in this work Oregon is largely behind Cali- 

 fornia and Washington. The number of cases of 

 salmon packed on the Columbia in 1896 was 463,- 

 777. and the value $2.261.826; and 87,760 < 

 worth $268.380, were packed from the coast st: 

 and bays. The number of persons employed in the 

 salmon fisheries and allied industries on the Oregon 

 side of Columbia river for 1896 was 4.323. and the 

 amount earned $895.476. On the coast streams and 

 bays 1,012 employees earned $!if!.335. The appa- 

 ratus used on the Oregon side of the Columbia is 

 valued at $679,035, and that on the coast streams 

 and bays at $62,980. The lands, buildings, and 

 machinery employed in all these are valued at 

 $1.184.750, and the cash capital employed at $1,- 

 42D.500. 



Shad and oysters have been successfully trans- 

 planted to the 'waters of the State. 



The almost total extinction of the sturgeon fish- 

 eries of the Columbia within the past five years is 

 presented as an illustration of the need of protective 

 laws. Nine years ago this fishery produced nearly 

 $40,000 annually. 



The commissioner shows the need of concurrent 

 laws in Oregon and Washington for protection of 

 fish in the Columbia. By a recent decision of the 

 United States court for the district of Oregon, the 

 officials of neither State have jurisdiction for the 

 enforcement of its fish laws beyond the middle of 

 the channel, except when the laws are concurrent. 



Mining 1 . A great mining canal, said to be larger 

 than any yet made, is in course of construction in 

 southern Oregon. Ground was broken for it in 

 May. about 3 miles south of Gold Hill. It is for 

 developing the gravel mines along Rogue river. 

 There are many mines there, but the surface of the 

 gravel bars and banks has just been touched, for 

 the reason that water could not be secured to work 

 the hydraulic plants to advantage. The mines, so 

 far as they have been developed, have been supplied 

 with water from the tributaries of the river, and, at 

 times of high water, from the river itself. 



A thorough exploration of the country along the 

 course of Rogue river has disclosed not only the 

 fact that it is rich in minerals, but that a wholesale 

 mining project might be extended to include the 

 supply of water for irrigating as well as its sale to 

 other miners. The plan was divided into three 

 parts, so as to include the construction of three 

 canals one known as the high-line canal, the sec- 

 ond as the middle canal, and the third as the lower 

 canal. If this project is successful, it means the 

 general development not only of the company's 

 properties, but of adjacent mines. 



The mint officers estimate the production of gold 



in 1896 in Oregon at $1,300.000, an increase of 

 $410.000 over that of 1895. The product of silver 

 was estimated at 75,000 ounces, an increase of 23,- 

 000 ounces. 



The coal product in 1895 wa< 73.685 short tons, 

 the largest, except that of 1888. in the history of 

 the State. The value at the mines was $247,901. 

 The increased output was due in part to the open- 

 ing of two new mines on Coquilie river. This in- 

 dustry employed 414 men an average of sixty-nine 

 days. The Coos Bay field is the most important in 

 the State. The greatest hindrance to the develop- 

 ment of the Oregon coal fields is in the way of 

 transportation. All the navigable rivers and bays 

 of tHe Oregon coast are obstructed by bars. 



Farm Products. The sugar-beet industry has 

 received a considerable impetus in the last year from 

 the efforts of Richard Kuehne. a German-American 

 expert, who has a ranch near Tigardville, on which 

 he has raised sugar beets of a high quality. He 

 -ays it will cost a farmer $35 an acre to raise his 

 crop, and. if he succeeds in raising the percentage 

 of sugar and purity in his crop, he can safely figure 

 on about $40 profit to an acre, provided there are 

 factories to use the product. 



Oregon has 2.4*<>.247 ?heep, from which were se- 

 cured in 1896 19.889.976 pounds of washed and un- 

 washed wool, with 09 per cent, of shrinkage. The 

 scoured wool amounted to 6,165,892 pounds. 



Immigration. The Pacific Northwestern Im- 

 migration Board, an association for advertising 

 Oregon throughout the East and turning the tide 

 of desirable immigration in this direction, has been 

 organized by business men of Portland. It will 

 continue the work of the old Oregon Immigra- 

 tion Board, but on a more extensive scale. Good 

 land can be obtained in the Willamette valley and 

 elsewhere for $15 to $25 an acre, and immigrants 

 can be suitably located. When the old board was 

 in operation farm lands in western Oregon were 

 held as high as $200 an acre. 



The citizens of Portland began the fund for the 

 new board with $30,000. In March a small party 

 of tradesmen and mechanics, the advance guard of 

 50 families from Columbus, Ohio, who intend to 

 live in Oregon, passed through Portland on their 

 way to Roseburg. to take possession of the Tipton 

 tract, comprising 2.200 acres, bought by the Colum- 

 bus colonists, intending to clear the land and put 

 in a general crop, and in the autumn to set a great 

 part of it with fruit trees. The colony was formed 

 by a few residents of Columbus, and other members 

 w'ere added by election, only families of skilled me- 

 chanics being admitted. This tract will be sub- 

 divided ; half will be turned into 50 small farms of 

 22 acres each, which will be made over to each 

 family. The other 1,100 acres will be used for the 

 joint benefit of the colony as regards pasturage and 

 timber. 



Trouble among Fishermen. A controversy 

 between fishermen on the lower Columbia and a 

 strike for higher prices caused some rioting and the 

 calling out of State troops in the spring. The con- 

 troversy was between trapmen and gill-net fisher- 

 men, between whom trouble has existed in former 

 years. It is thus explained on the side of the gill- 

 net fishermen : 



" Year after year the trapmen have been en- 

 croaching farther and farther upon the drifting 

 grounds of the gill-netters. each advance being in- 

 evitably followed by a shoaling of the water at the 

 trap locations. The gill-netter condemns the trap 

 on account of its real or fancied wholesale destruc- 

 tion of young salmon, but no trap that did not ob- 

 struct navigation or endanger life was ever inter- 

 fered with. The present objection of the fishermen 

 to the construction of traps near the scene of the 



