OREGON FARMER 111 



Climate. 



Along with her fertile soil and abundant natural resources, the 

 climate of Oregon is an attraction to people of the East. Those who 

 have breasted the cyclone, braved the flood, hibernated through 

 frigid winters, and panted in the shade through sweltering summers, 

 are sure to welcome a change to the genial winters and cool bracing 

 summers of Oregon. To be sure, some complain of the rainy months 

 of the Western Oregon winter. Some even return after the first 

 year to their old home in the East; but in nine cases out of ten, 

 they find their former haunts have lost their charm, and they return 

 to Oregon poorer but wiser men. 



Let them but remain a couple of winters, until the proverbial 

 web has begun to unite the toes of each foot into a congenial group, 

 then they will never be anything else but Western Oregonians. 

 They turn blue under two degrees of frost, shiver at the thought of 

 an Eastern winter, and blossom out in rosy cheeks during the steady 

 rains of December and January. In fact, we are all agreed out here 

 that rain suits us much better than snow. It makes the kale heads 

 large and succulent for our poultry and dairy cows. It keeps the 

 grass on our hillsides fresh and green to delight the eye, and feed 

 our flocks of sheep and Angora goats. Should anyone, however, 

 wish to escape the winter rains, he has but to cross the Cascades. 

 Here he will find a climate combining the best features of the East, 

 but free alike from its sweltering heat and benumbing cold. 



Another feature of the Oregon climate which appeals to most 

 Eastern people is its freedom from dangerous or damaging storms. 

 The man who has braved the tornado and breasted the flood, will 

 find here a haven where even severe electrical storms seldom or 

 never occur. 



No better commentary could be required on the climate of Oregon 

 than is afforded by the health statistics of her population. According 

 to the report of Dr. Calvin S. White, Secretary Oregon State Board 

 of Health, "Oregon ranks highest among the states of the Union 

 in the low rate of mortality, the annual death rate for the year 1911, 

 for Portland, where the official record is kept, being 9.47 per 1000 of 

 population". Again he says: "Our infant mortality is almost 

 incredibly low, and the boy or girl born into Oregon has every likeli- 

 hood of attaining a ripe old age." 



The People of Oregon. 



It has been said that there is no other western state in which the 

 Easterner feels so much at home as he does in Oregon. Such a state- 

 ment contains both truth and falsehood. It is true that the wild- 

 ness and wooliness of the frontier, which has left certain marks of 

 its crudity upon a large part of our American West, made little or 

 no impression on Oregon. It is also noteworthy that in the serious 

 moral tone of its inhabitants, Oregon compares favorably with the 

 most straight-laced sections of the East. 



