830 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
a course will never^help you, old friend, to re¬ 
gain your old prestige... 
The aristocracy which has sprung from 
shoddy wealth has done more to establish 
habits of indolence than anything else, says 
Prof. Nihart in the Industrialist. 
And now, it would appear, according to 
Loppert, that certain plants are not neces¬ 
sarily injured by quick freezing and rapid 
thawing alternately, but only by a certain de¬ 
gree of cold... 
The Kansas Agricultural College is an in¬ 
stitution most creditable to that State. 
0t>frijtul)cne. 
TRANSCONTINENTAL LETTERS. 
XXIII. 
MARY WAGER-FISHER. 
As I set about trying to describe the Colum¬ 
bia River, as I saw it during the two days we 
spent upon it, in steaming between Portland 
and The Dalles, both ways, a distance of 88 
miles each way, I lose half my enthusiasm in 
realizing the impossibility of conveying any 
adequate idea of the scene. It is, I believe, u 
generally accepted fact that the scenery along 
the Columbia is the finest river scenery in the 
world; and we saw it in the gorgeous splendor 
of autumn colors. It was a cloudy day when 
we went up the river, and I thought it would 
not be possible to see it under better circum¬ 
stances— the dullness of the atmosphere adding 
to the rich hues a sotnbreuess and gloom that 
well accorded with the grandeur of the sur¬ 
roundings. Upon our return, after we had 
reached The Dalles, the head of steamboat 
navigation, the sunninessof the morning indi¬ 
cated a clear day, and we determined to muko 
the remainder of the journey by boat, instead 
of by rail—a decision that eventuated in ex¬ 
ceeding great joy, for the sky remained clear 
until long after the setting of the sun, and if 
toe scenery was wonderfully, surpassingly 
flue on the cloudy day. It was transcendently 
magnificent on the suuny one, when every fea¬ 
ture of the marvelous panorama stood out 
with perfect distinctness. 
Portland, as you know, Is on the Willamette 
River, some eight or ten miles (possibly more) 
[It is twelve miles.— Eds ] from its junction 
with the Columbia; but the steamer glides so 
imperceptibly from the one into the other, 
that Anaximander assured us that we would 
never know where we had left the Wlllamette. 
Hut the lad in due time cried out, ‘‘Here we 
gol The steamer is making u turn!” and we 
were on the bosom of the great river named 
from Columbus—a fact which should console 
him iu part for not having had America named 
for him. Lit was named after Columbus very 
indirectly, however. It was discovered in 1792 
by Captain Robert Cray, who entered it on 
May 11 in the good ship Columbia Redivivu, 
of Boston, Mass., and it was from this vessel 
the river received its name; but the vessel, in 
her turn, hud received her name indirectly 
from Columbus.— Eds.] 
For the first few miles, there are some fine 
farms lying along both sidos of the river, and 
at Vancouver, on the Washington side, the 
United States Coverument has a military 
post. The town is an extremely beautiful one, 
located upon long ten aces facing the river, 
and it is said that the soldiers always leave 
Vancouver with regret. Gradually the river 
banks become higher and rockier, as the Cas¬ 
cade Mountains are penetrated, until the 
mountain walls rise from three to four thous¬ 
and feet high, aud for seven hours we steamed 
through this enormous cieft, through which 
the river broke its way in ages gone by. But 
not all the way by boat, for in the very heart 
of the. mountains are the ‘‘Cascades,” where 
the river makes a fall, and rushes for five or 
six miles over rocks, making the passage by 
boat so perilous that u railioad has been con¬ 
structed to transport passengers; so as we 
step from the steamer into the ears, we also, at 
the other end, step from the cars into auother 
steamer for the rest of the voyage. There is no 
noticeable delay; the car ride Tortus an agreea¬ 
ble break iu the trip, and everything is so nice, 
aud so admirubly arranged, that it was like 
being in fairy land where every tiling goes by 
magic. The United States Government is 
blasting the rocks at the Cascades and con¬ 
structing a canal, which will insure uninter¬ 
rupted navigation between Portlnud and The 
Dalles; but for passengers, nothing could be 
better than the present conditions. If the 
Government would but consult me as to the 
disposition of some of its surplus money in the 
Treasury, I would use my powers of persua¬ 
sion in behalf of improvements at the mouth 
of the Columbia River, iu which there is so 
much obstruction os to make navigation 
tedious and dangerous in bad weather, which 
militates against any and all ports along the 
Columbia, including Portland, at which ocean 
steamships would touch Steamers regular¬ 
ly come into Portland from San Francisco 
and Puget Sound, uud from everywhere else 
for that matter; but sometimes a vessel is 
stranded ou sand bars, and sometimes detained 
from crossing the bar at the mouth of the 
river, for weeks. It is even thought by some 
engineers, I believe, that it may be found im¬ 
possible to keep the mouth of the river clear, 
on account of constantly accumulating sand; 
for the amount of sand in this river, all the 
way up as far as we saw it, iB enormous; and 
the steamers dodge from one shore to the 
other to keep iu the deep current und escape 
the sand, which iu many places rises above 
the surface and forms islands Indeed there 
were several points at which the steamer 
made landings, steamiug boldly straight into 
the shore, where there was neither pier nor 
dock, nor any indication that a boat had ever 
landed before. But the shore was all sand, 
shelving abruptly into deep water—a plank 
was put out, with one end on the boat and the 
other on the shore, and passengers would get 
off on the sand, and disappear in the moun¬ 
tain canyons; sometimes only a mail bag 
would be left, and another taken on board, 
and in several instances, men came out in a 
skiff from the shore to exchange mail bags, 
and sometimes to get freight. At one point, 
a small boat brought to the steamer a slain 
deer, and a sturgeon six feet long without its 
head—an enormous fish which the laddie 
promptly pronounced "Nubtna, King of Stur¬ 
geons,' 1 us recorded in his beloved "Hiawatha.” 
A gentleman told us of long, round fishes 
caught lu the river, called "candle” fish, 
which are used for burning. Among the pas¬ 
sengers was a long time resident of Portland, 
he having come to this coast in ’48, via Cape 
Horn—a man of high culture, and a member 
of Congress from Oregon, who proved iu a 
jong conversation we had, to be a believer, as 
I am, in the usefulness of the Chinese here, 
aud I am aware that it is by no means "popu¬ 
lar” to see any good in the “Heath Chinee.” 
On one of the high, rocky islands along the 
shore of the river, rises tli« base of a monu¬ 
ment, which is being erected over the grave 
of an Oregonian, named Victor Trivett. The 
islaud is called Memoloose, being Indian for 
Place of the Dead. The Indians have used it 
from time immemorial as a burial ground, 
and the tribes that here deposit their dead do 
not bury, but place them iu loosely construc¬ 
ted "shanties ’—square huts built of boards, 
sticks and odd bits of timber, which look us if a 
sudden gust of wind would blow them down. 
They sew up the bodies iu a wrapping of 
buckskin, and deposit them in these rude 
structures, sometimes in orderly rows, or pell- 
mell. They also place with them whatever 
personal effects they may have had; but first 
break or render them useless, so us to prevent 
whites from being tempted to steal them. A 
man on board the boat, who hud visiLed the 
island, gave me a detailed account of them, 
and added that there was no unpleasuut odor 
escaping from the disintegrating aborigines, 
which is more than can be said of them in 
life. The Indians have a legend that ut the 
Cascades the river was at one time bridged 
by the mountains, but that Mt. Hood aud 
Mt, Adams (look on a mup for these) quar¬ 
reled, and in flinging rocks at each other, 
broke the bridge down, and the rocks still lie 
in the river. The rock all through this region 
is basaltic, aud the columnar f ormation of it 
is wonderful to see. lu some places these 
columns, shaped like a honey -comb, rise 
straight up three or four hundred feet high 
in solid masses ; again they form islands per¬ 
fectly conical in shape, aud of various sizes. 
This rock forms the substance of all the 
mountains, and t he columnar formation crops 
out in a thousand ways; sometimes iu a series 
of benches, rising up aud up two, to three or 
four thousand feet high, each bench bearing 
a growth of vegetation, ferns, small trees, 
trailing vines and mosses, and the very top is 
crowned with towers and turrets, lookiug for 
all the world like monster castles for giants. 
Sometimes a half-dozen waterfalls can be 
seen at a time, leaping, high up, from the 
mountuin sides. Out} stupendous feature of 
this scenery consists of the mountains that 
rise in the rear of those immediately along 
the shore, so that after feasting your eyes ou 
the nearer grandeur, you lift them to some¬ 
thing still more amazing beyond. There is 
constant variety the whole 50 or 00 miles 
through the mountains. Now one side is the 
finest and then the other, and then both at 
once challenge for the palm of wouderfulness. 
Aud the coloring on those mountains! the 
lichen and grass and moss, the vines aud 
plants and trees—all the colors of the rainbow 
spread out iu countless hues! We talked of 
the Rhine and the Danube, the Hudson and 
the St, Lawrence, and felt that if these were 
all rolled in one they would still be far from 
approaching the uuparalleled scenery of the 
Columbia, worth crossing the Continent a 
score of times to see. At the close of our 
first day’s delight a shower of rain fell, and 
the sun coming out formed a rainbow, arch¬ 
ing the river. At the close of the second day, 
when the sun went down aud we turned into 
the Willamette, with one sweep of the eye 
we could see Mt. Jefferson and Mt. Hood iu 
Oregon, Mts. St. Helens, Rainier and Adams, 
in Washington—five great, snow-white moun¬ 
tains—a sight to be seen nowhere else in the 
world of which I know, and it goes without 
saying that we were transported at the 
glorious scene. 
RURAL SPECIAL REPORTS. 
G. n»da. 
Belmont, Nova Scotia, Nov. 26.—We have 
had rather peculiar weather this year: the 
rain-fall has been larger than for a number of 
years—very changeable and cloudy. We had 
40 days’ rain In July and August: about June 
20 , a hail storm about three miles wide passed 
through the counties of Cumberland, Col¬ 
chester aud Halifax, doing a great deal of 
damage to the crops: the glass in houses was 
broken and some crops were totally destroyed. 
The potato crop is a failure—only about one- 
third of an average; in Prince Edward's 
Island the case is the same. Oats a heavy 
crop; barley good; wheat a fair crop; but all 
late crops have been hurt by frosts. Hay an 
average crop. The season was very backward. 
There is a great deal of fall plowing tobe done 
yet. Flour, sugar and oatmeal are low. 
Butter, 19, 20 cents per pound; eggs, 18, 20 
cents per dozen; potatoes, $1.10 per barrel; 
Oats, 40 cents, and barley, OOcents per bushel, 
L. DE A. 
Maryland. 
W estover, Somerset Co., Nov. 28.—We are 
havingaliuc rain, which will bean advantage 
to wheat. As anile, wo ul ways have open and 
comparatively wurm weather until Christmas, 
which gives wheat, a chance to become well 
established before freezing weather sets in. 
Corn is about all gathered; the crop is up to 
the average in this section, with the exception 
of some late planting which was affected to 
some extent by the September drought. 
s. c. 8. 
Nebraska. 
L ong Pine, Sioux Co.—Our land is sandy, 
but last year, as I was one of the first comers, 
I planted 814 kinds of trees, vines, shrubs and 
seeds from France, England, Germany, Can¬ 
ada aud all over the States, and 1 never saw 
such a place to grow everything. 1 raised 
five bushels of peanuts, and I had cotton that 
came to full maturity. Our wheat was extra 
fine; home weighed 05 pounds per bushel. 
Corn was a good crop, some pieces yielded 75 
bushels ppr acre, sound uud dry. Webave 27 
kinds of native grasses. I have taken tho 
Rural New-Yorker for the last eight years, 
and to take it once means to ueverquit taking 
it, there are so many good suggestions in every 
copy. Why, I would assoon think of farming 
without teams as without the Rural. I have 
fouud iu oue number suggestions that were 
worth 25 dollars to me alone. We take five 
papers, and can hardly wait for the week’s 
end for the Rural. It is useful for the gar¬ 
dener, farmer, builder, mason, inochunic, and 
especially for the poor class of farmers, as it 
teaches t hem so many good lessons during the 
year. it* w. b. 
Crete, Saline Co., Nov. 21.—Crops of all 
kinds are good here. Corn never was better. 
1 never suw a better display of apples in any 
State thuu I did at our county fair. Apples 
are selling at from 65 cents to $1 per bush¬ 
el; potatoes, 25 cents; wheat, 60 cents; corn, 
20 cents. m. b. m. 
Pennsylvania. 
Mt Morris, Green Co. Nov. 23 —After a 
good rain we are now having quite cool wea¬ 
ther. Almost all the farmers have their fall 
work done and are now ready for Winter. Hay 
was a very light crop. W beat good; corn a 
f air crop—much better than most farmers 
were expecting, as we had a very dry Sum¬ 
mer and Fall. Pasture was shorter than for 
a great many years. Rough feed will be 
quite high and hard to get at any price. 
J. B. MCC. 
Waxtiiugton Territory. 
Ferndale, Whatcom Co., Nov. 15.—All 
kinds of crops are very large. Prices low; 
times dull. Butter, eggs and meat about the 
only articles wanted. Butter 80 cents per 
pound; eggs 80 cents per dozen; dressed meats, 
except venison, 9 cents per pound; venison 6 
cents per pound; mallard ducks $3 per dozen; 
wild geese $6 per dozen: tame hay $10 per 
ton; wild, $5. z. h. r. 
-» » ♦ 
RURAL SEED REPORTS. 
Michigan, 
Eaton Rapids, Eaton Co.—The Rural peas 
were a success. I had three varieties of to¬ 
matoes. Oue was large and smooth, and it 
would be hard to find a better sort. Another 
resembled the Acme, and nearly all of this 
kind rotted before they, were ripe. The third 
was an orange colored, medium-sized and very 
high flavored sort which we prize very much. 
The Garden Treasures were real treasures, 
and afforded pleasure to all about the house¬ 
hold. The oats, sown in drills one foot apart, 
were heavy but my neighbor’s seven horses 
harvested every head. My Rural Union Corn 
was splendid, and though a part was destroy¬ 
ed by the horses, yet 1 had two bushels of 
ears. Many stalks bad three ears and there 
were but few suckers: the stalks would aver-, 
age about eight feet in bight. 1 prize the 
Rural and will try to show others its worth. 
s K. F. 
[Thanks. We shall appreciate the kindness. 
Eds.] 
Nebraska. 
Long Pine, Sioux Co.—The Rural Peas 
were simply wonderful to behold. The R. 
Union Corn did not do well. The Garden 
Treasures were the admiration of thousands 
of spectators, as I live on the main road and 
all could seem them. R. w. B. 
New York. 
Syracuse. Onondaga Co.—The Garden 
Treasures gave us some beautiful flowers, but 
for a wantof suitable care they did not amount 
to much. The peas were planted in the gar¬ 
den April 29th in a row with Henderson’s 
"First of All," and all but the Horstord’s 
(only a small number of which germinated) 
were ready to pick at. the same time—60 days 
from planting. The tomatoes, planted May 
21st, made exceptionally good plants, were 
transplanted after the drought began, so I had 
hard work to keep them alivo. They bore a 
heavy crop of large to very large, mostly 
smooth fruit, not more than one-third of 
which got ripe, owing to tho lateness of the 
planting. * I planted the Rural corn May 21st 
iu good garden soil. It grew eight to nine feet 
high, the weather was a little too dry; the 
first tassels appeared July 19th; silks ap¬ 
peared July 26th—at the same time as those 
on Squantum Corn. It was in good boil¬ 
ing condition Aug. 23d, aud cut up Oct. 
1st, a few of the husks turning white; about 
three fourths pretty well tilled out, ears 
only of fair length and size; kernels large; 
part white dent aud part more like yellow 
flint; gome ears nearly all of the former, aud 
some mostly of the latter—not many stalks 
had two eurs. 1 intend to try a little of it in 
the field next year, but hardly think it well 
adapted to this locality and soil. The Blush 
Potato, received in ’83, was not planted until 
it was nearly dried up, and had sprouts five or 
six inches long, so that I got but a small yield 
last year. This year I dug u trench 75 feet 
loug and one spade deep aud wide. I put into 
this three bushels of very old compost (muck, 
lime, stable manure and night-soil—seven- 
eights of the first); this we mixed thoroughly 
with the soil in the bottom of the trench; cut 
the potatoes into pieces with two eyes in each, 
placed them about one foot apart, covered 
about one inch deep. Then 1 spread on top 
half a bushel of wood ashes, and filled up the 
trench level; gave level culture and kept the 
plot free from weeds. 1 planted them on May 
21st; the vines grew two feet high and kept 
green until about Oct. 1st; dug Oct. 2Uth, the 
crop was as follows:—Of merchantable tubers 
(if not too large), 220; of those about as large 
as a pullet's egg, 20; of smaller ones, 10; total 
number, 250; aggregate weight, 107 pounds; 
one heuped bushel weighed 57pounds; 25large 
ones weighed 23% pounds; five largest ones 
weighed 5% pounds. The bushel contained 
180 tubers of all sizes. This would be by 
measure 384 bushels per acre. This would be 
by weight 344 bushels to the acre, at 60 pounds 
per bushel. e. t. h. 
Punnijh ania. 
Mt. Morris, Greene Co., Nov. 23.—The 
Rural seeds did well. We had nearly a 
bushel of Shumaker Wheat aud as much of 
Surprise. The Black-bearded Centennial was 
ull winter-killed. The Diehl-Mediterranean 
did not come up well—too dry; the same was 
the case with the rye. The tomatoes were 
fine. Tho Garden Treasures were very much 
admired by all whosaw them. The peas were 
good. 1 like the Rural and will endeavor to 
get some new subscribers. j. b. mcc. 
[Thunks. We hope they may like it also. 
Eds.] 
Washington Territory. 
Ferndale, Whatcom Co.—I planted the 
Rural seeds on May 26. The R N.-Y. Peas 
were fit for eating in 56 days; yield small— 
probably they would have doue better if plant¬ 
ed earlier. The Market Garden was about the 
same as to y ield, but late. May do better Dext 
year. Garden Treasures that bloomed were 
fine; some of them are still in bloom in the 
open ground. The Champion Oats were not 
half as good as Mold's, or Welcome. The 
wheat now looks as if the yield would be im¬ 
mense. z. H. r. 
- *■*■+ - 
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