OREGON FARMER 109 



COUNTRY LIFE IN OREGON. 



By HECTOR MACPHERSON, 

 Professor of Economics. 



3N the tables accompanying this chapter, we have condensed the 

 main social facts brought out by the Preliminary Rural Survey 

 of our state. The critical student will see at a glance that the 

 material is too scanty to afford the basis for a very satisfactory 

 discussion of country life. In fact, life in either country or city, 

 in Oregon as elsewhere, is too big and too complex to be reduced 

 to such simple statistical form. Valuable material may be so expressed ; 

 but the collection of adequate statistical information on country life 

 would entail an investigation much broader in scope and more 

 minute in detail than the Oregon Statistical Bureau was able to 

 undertake in this preliminary survey. 



However, every field man was required to write up a general 

 report on each neighborhood visited; and, while the information 

 contained in these reports is not of a nature which admits of tabula- 

 tion, it contains many interesting side-lights on country life in all 

 parts of the state. 



Besides, the writer has freely used such material as was available 

 from the recently published Oregon Almanac, advance sheets of 

 the 1910 Census, Histories of Oregon, and personal interviews with 

 men familiar with country life in all parts of the state. 



The People and Their Heritage. 



The essential factors in the upbuilding of a high type of rural 

 civilization are two: the environment and the people. Both these 

 factors are equally important. In a harsh, barren and unproductive 

 country, the finest human ] type cannot be developed in sufficient 

 numbers to make social progress possible. On the other hand, the 

 most bountiful natural resources, may go to waste for ages under the 

 control of an unprogressive population. 



In both the elements essential to progress, Oregon is already 

 richly endowed. In natural resources, she has a splendid heritage. 

 Of her immense area of 97,699 square miles, it is estimated that there 

 are about 23,000,000 acres suited to agriculture. A glance at the 

 accompanying diagram and explanatory key will show the present 

 distribution of Oregon's land area. 



In all probability, the time will come when half of this 61,000,000 

 acres will be carefully cultivated. At least, when one thinks of the 

 beautifully terraced hillsides in the mountain districts of Italy, 

 Switzerland, France, and Germany, one cannot but have a vision 

 of our Western Oregon foothills clothed in fruitful trees, vines and 

 shrubs; and imagine he hears the mountains ringing with the shouts 

 and laughter of a healthy, freedom loving, population. 



But with 23,000,000 acres of arable land to till, we shall have little 

 reason to resort to terraced hill-sides for many years to come. On an 



