276 John H. Mitchell— Oregon 
vast area of 12,000 square miles. It is a great Miocene basin; 
fossils of the Miocene age are found there in abundance. The 
greater portion of it is under improvement, but much of it is 
held in large tracts of 640 acres, being the donations made to 
settlers by the act of Congress of September 27,1850. Nearly 
the whole of it is well watered by streams, a very small propor- 
tion requiring irrigation. It produces wheat, oats, barley, corn, 
all kinds of vegetables, and fruits in abundance. The Willamette 
valley is alone capable of sustaining a population of 5,000,000 
souls, and even then the population would be but a fraction in 
excess that of Belgium to the square mile, and less than that of 
England by 102 to the square mile. The productive capacity 
of the Inland Empire in eastern Oregon is something wonderful. 
Thirty years ago not a bushel of wheat was raised in that en- 
tire empire, although across the line near Walla Walla some 
300 bushels of wheat were raised by Dr Whitman at his mission 
in 1841; Commodore Wilkes, a portion of whose party visited 
this mission in that year, so reports. Twenty years ago the 
coming fall I left the Central Pacific railroad near Salt Lake and 
journeyed westward through northern Utah and eastern Oregon. 
The first wheat of any importance was grown in eastern Ore- 
gon that year. There was a three-acre lot located near where 
the town of Weston, Umatilla county, now is and immediately 
outside the boundaries of the Umatilla Indian reservation. The 
crop had been taken off before my arrival. The wheat stubble 
being so abundant, I was amazed and expressed surprise to my 
host, with whom I remained over night, that there should be 
such a fertile spot in this vast desert, as the whole country 
seemed to me to be little less than a desert. He smiled and 
replied that the tract on which this wheat had grown was the 
same character as land of the whole surrounding country, in- 
cluding the greater portion of the Umatilla Indian reservation. 
I obtained a sack and immediately outside of the field, digging 
down some 6 or 8 inches, filled it with a peck of soil. I brought. 
it with me to Washington; took it to the late Professor Henry, 
then Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and requested that. 
he analyze it and tell me its properties and what good for. He 
inquired, “ Where did you get this soil?” I replied, “ West of 
the Rocky mountains.” Professor Henry remarked, “That is 
rather indefinite.” ‘‘ But Professor,” said I, ‘‘I shall not tell 
you whether it came from California, Oregon, the Willamette 
