Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/26

16. All these had to be introduced from without. The plains were covered with a luxuriant growth of grass, but there were no herds to graze. The climate was favorable for the production of fruit, but there were no trees to plant. One by one the auxiliaries had to be added, often with difficulty, and usually with circumstances of romantic interest. When the prairies of Oregon are covered with stock and the hills are green with orchards, it is hard to realize that it was not always so. Among the many things to note in the social evolution of Oregon, there is nothing that surpasses the pluck and the courage that furnished to so remote a locality the things that are needed for an agricultural existence.

Life for the farmer would have been destitute indeed had there been no cattle. Without them "the plow would have stood idle in the furrow and the young pioneer would have gone hungry to bed." Cattle were grazing in the pastures of the fur company, but they were not for sale. No others could be found nearer than the Spanish missions of California; but they must be obtained in some way, and the earliest of the industrial enterprises of the agricultural period had that for its object. The "Willamette Cattle Company" was organized in 1837, with a capital of a few hundred dollars, to bring to the settlers a herd of Spanish cattle from the missions of California. The enterprise was intrusted to Ewing Young and P. L. Edwards, who started by vessel on their important mission. It was no easy task to make the purchase from the Spaniards, whose policy forbade the sale. At length a herd of about eight hundred was secured and the journey back was begun. From the diary of Edwards we are able to get glimpses of the trials that were endured. Few are the incidents of his-