Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/231

Rh wild-cherry, and other thrifty, small trees; but in some cases, the bottom-lands widen out so as to leave fine prairie spots between the streams and the spurs of the hills. All these valleys will grow grain, hardy fruits, and the finest of vegetables, in abundance. But owing to the great amount of moisture from the sea, which keeps ever verdant the nutritious native grasses, it is especially a dairy country. The coolness and evenness of the temperature along the coast is another advantage to dairying, together with the great amount of root-crops which the ground produces, of the kinds best for milch cows. But the diversity of surface allows the farmer to choose what branch of farming he will follow: whether it will please him to raise grains, hay, fruit, vegetables, or make butter and cheese.

Very many of the coast streams empty into bays of their own. At the mouth of the Coquille and Rogue rivers are harbors, which have been used to some extent by small vessels—while Coos Bay is the leading sea-port for Southern Oregon. Mean low-water on the bar is eleven feet; high-water, sixteen feet seven inches. Umpqua Bay is more of an open roadstead than Coos; but furnishes a very good harbor, with thirteen feet on the bar, at mean low-water; and nineteen feet, high-water.

The Alseya River forms a small bay at its mouth, which is not much used. Yaquina Bay, however, is quite an important port, where vessels from San Francisco come to load with lumber and oysters. It has a straight entrance, half a mile wide, with fourteen feet of water on the bar at low-tide. The name, Yaquina, signifying everywhere, describes the shape of the bay, however, when once inside. It meanders about for nine miles, having no less than three settlements along