Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/192

182 I paid for wood the last year I lived at Weston $75, for corn and fodder $50, all of which is saved here. We use much less pork here than in Missouri. The salmon are running now and will continue to run until October next. They generally commence running the last of February and end in October. I have had several messes of fresh salmon. At this point we purchase of the Indians ducks, geese, swans, salmon, potatoes, feathers, and venison, for little or nothing. Ducks, four loads; geese, eight loads; swans, ten loads; salmon, four loads of powder and shot each. Feathers cost about twelve and a half cents a pound. There are more ducks, etc., here than you ever saw; also pheasants in great numbers. They remain here all the winter. I have hunted very little, being too busy. We find it very profitable to get of the Indians, to whom we trade old shirts, pantaloons, vests, and all sorts of clothing. They are more anxious to purchase clothes than any people you ever saw. You can sell anything here that was ever sold. Stocking Cary ploughs $5 each. We have an excellent blacksmith living in our place who makes first rate Cary ploughs at thirty-one and a quarter cents a pound, he finding it. [Omitting an elaborate description of the Willamette Valley.] American cows are worth here from $50 to $75; American horses from $50 to $75; oxen from $75 to $125 per yoke. This is the finest country for grazing cattle you ever saw. They keep fat all winter. Butter sells at 20 to 25 cents. And, what I did not expect to find, this is a good country for hogs. At all events you have here plenty of grass, a root they call wappato, and also plenty of white oak mast. A first rate market can be had for any and everything, and you have never seen business more brisk. Times are first rate and everybody is busy. The manufacturing power is unsurpassed in the world. There are more fine sites than you ever saw. Such water power as that at the falls of Platte can be found everywhere. * *

[Omitting a portion of the letter describing the timber of Oregon.] I will not persuade you, nor will I any of my friends, to come to this country; but were I in the States again, I should come myself. For $300 you could purchase one hundred young heifers; and in driving them here you might lose from five to ten. When you reached here they would be worth $4,000, and in ten years, without labor or expense, would make you a splendid fortune. You can move here with less expense than you could to Tennessee or Kentucky. Your provisions, teams, etc., you have; your oxen and horses, especially your fine American mares, would be worth double as much as they would cost you there. There are very few good American horses here. The Indian horses are not so gentle as the American, nor so fine blooded. The American cattle are greatly superior to the Spanish for milk, as they give more milk and are more gentle; but the Spanish cattle are larger. Cows have calves here from fifteen to twenty months old, and sheep have lambs twice a year in some parts of territory. The reason