OREGON FARMER 113 



question of the flags, this immigration was a momentous occurrence 

 in moulding the future of the North West and especially of Oregon. 

 It provided the ancestry for a large proportion of our present 

 population. It laid the foundation for that serious moral purpose- 

 fulness which is one of the distinctive characteristics of Oregonian 

 character. 



On this foundation stock for the Oregon breed of men and women, 

 F. V. Holman, in his "Dr. John McLpughlin", (p. 84), writes as 

 follows: "A great majority of the immigrants to Oregon from 1843 

 to 1846, inclusive, and some of the later immigrants, were from the 

 Southern States. They, and their ancestors for many generations, 

 had been born and brought up in the South. Most of them had 

 the good qualities and were of the high type of American citizenship 

 characteristic of the white people of the South. They were mostly 

 plain people, but they and their ancestry were of good class. Theirs 

 was an inheritance of indomitable will, high courage and noble 

 purposes. Their ancestors had conquered, settled, and upbuilded 

 the country from the seaboards of Virginia and the Carolinas to the 

 Mississippi River. Oregon was another land to conquer, to settle 

 and to upbuild". 



These earliest settlers took their choice of the best lands, and 

 their descendants now form a large percentage of the wealthier, 

 more conservative elements in our population. They have pros- 

 pered and multiplied, until, their children and children's children 

 are to be found in every walk of life. Although many of the younger 

 generation have alligned themselves with the progressive forces of 

 the state, we are inclined to give much of the credit for Oregon's 

 aggressive application of the principles of democracy to the newer 

 elements of our population. 



After almost a half century of comparative neglect, Oregon has 

 within the past ten or fifteen years, begun again to attract the atten- 

 tion of horneseekers. It is putting it conservatively, I think, to 

 assert that she has been getting an exceptionally large proportion 

 of the most desirable citizens. Business men, professional men, 

 and college graduates, from far and near, have been buying land and 

 settling down to build for themselves country homes in Oregon. 

 Many of them, to be sure, have been deluded into false hopes by the 

 exaggerated claims of speculating land companies. But even these, 

 after the first revulsion of feeling, have frankly recognized the solid 

 worth of the state. They have brought their education and business 

 training to bear upon the problems of our rural life in a way which 

 will ultimately place the progress of Oregon on a much firmer basis 

 than would have been possible in any such get-rich-easy Utopia as 

 the land speculators depicted. 



The greatest need of Oregon today is for a denser rural population. 

 With an estimated arable area of 23,000,000 acres, we have, as 

 indicated by the accompanying diagram, a total rural population of 

 only 337,000, an average of 3.6 persons to the square mile for the whole 



