Page:Oregon, End of the Trail.djvu/90



and rye, 600,000 bushels, from 48,000 acres. In the same year, such forage crops as clover, timothy, and alfalfa yielded a combined total of 1,428,000 tons, cut from 806,000 acres. Tame hay is now grown on a much greater acreage than wheat; and 242,000 tons of wild hay were cut in 1937 from 220,000 acres, principally in mountain valleys east of the Cascade range and in the Klamath and Harney basins.

From the time farming began at Fort Astoria until 1828, when enough wheat was raised to support the inhabitants, potatoes were the main substitute for bread. As settlement increased and spread it was found that certain portions of the Oregon country were peculiarly adapted to potato culture, notably the Deschutes region, with a soil of volcanic ash and loamy sand, the Klamath Falls district of fine sandy loam, and the sandy silt and humus of Coos County, on the coast. In 1937 Oregon produced 7,840,000 bushels of potatoes on 49,000 acres, or an average of 160 bushels an acre.

There is scarcely a vegetable known to the temperate zone that does not thrive in Oregon. Every ranch has its home garden and truck farming is an important commercial activity in certain parts of the state, particularly on acreage near large towns. Onions head the list of truck garden products, 660,000 sacks being marketed in 1937. Green celery is a close second, with a 1937 output of 234,000 crates, grown chiefly in the middle Columbia and Willamette Valley. Cantaloupes from Douglas and Wasco Counties are of a superior grade.

Describing the Oregon country as he saw it in 1845, the Reverend Gustavus Hines wrote: "Apples, peaches, and other kinds of fruit, flourish, as far as they have been cultivated; and from present appearances, it is quite likely that the time is not far distant, when the country will be well supplied with the various kinds of fruit which grow in the Middle States." The first extensive planting of fruit trees was done at Milwaukie in 1 847 by William Meek and the Lewelling brothers, %vho brought some 800 seedlings and a few grafted trees over the Oregon Trail in boxes fitted inside their covered wagons. The venture paid well. The first box of apples placed on sale in Portland realized $75," and in 1851 four boxes were sold in San Francisco for $500. Seth Eewdling set out the earliest Italian prune orchard in 1858; and the brothers developed a number of distinctive fruit varieties now well« known -in Oregon—among them the Black Republican, Lincoln, and Bing cherries, the Golden prune, and the Lewelling grape.

Fruit growing has become one of Oregon's major econ&nic activities. Hood River apples, Rogue River pears, The Dalles djer/ies, 4nd Wii