Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/389

338 Walla River and mill-pond; on the opposite side a ditch for discharging waste water from the mill, and for irrigating purposes. Willow, birch, and alder fringed the stream. A meadow lay in front stretching toward the west; apple-trees were growing in sight of the house, and flowers in the small enclosure in front. A general air of thrift and comfort prevailed. In 1839 the stock at Waiilatpu consisted of a yoke of oxen, two cows, an American bull, and a few hogs. In 1841 according to Wilkes, a considerable herd had come by descent. Sheep had been obtained from the Hawaiian Islands, and hogs had greatly multiplied. There was a saw-mill belonging to the mission twenty miles up Mill Creek, having a capacity of about three thousand feet a day, together with a house for the mill men.

It was first thought that the soil of the Walla Walla Valley was not fertile, but Wilkes found wheat standing seven, and corn nine, feet high in the mission fields at Waiilatpu, while the garden was filled with fine vegetables and melons. There was less cultivation by the Cayuses than by the Nez Percés, yet they brought into use many small patches of ground, some of them at Waiilatpu, but more on the Umatilla River, where at a distance of twenty to forty miles lived some of the most influential chiefs. Less grain was raised at Waiilatpu than at Lapwai, partly because of the manifold cares of the superintendent, and partly because, owing to the haughty and intractable disposition of the Cayuses, fewer of them could be employed as farm laborers. Whitman's manner of teaching was similar