Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/59

Rh country, and their improvements, though considerable, appear very meager. Every thing, however, was at hand; rail timber ten cuts to the tree; cedar for shingles and shakes; poles straight enough for rafters without hewing, and fir trees, seemingly grown for the special purpose of house frames. The soil was favorable. Though producing a good growth of the most nutritious native grass, it was easily plowed, two good horses being sufficient to turn over two acres of sod in a day, and, unlike the sward in other countries, was mellow from the first harrowing. Many a family coming as late as October plowed and fenced forty acres and raised from twelve hundred to sixteen hundred bushels of wheat the next harvest, working their cattle that hauled them across the plains and feeding them nothing but the bunch grass upon which they pastured through the winter months.

After the discovery of gold in California, the market for all farm products was at almost every man's door and at marvelous prices. Butter from fifty cents to a dollar a pound; bacon from twenty-five to fifty cents a pound; chickens from $5 to $10 per dozen; eggs from twenty-five to fifty cents per dozen; sheep from $5 to $12 per head; cows, $50; horses, $200; oxen from $100 to $200 per yoke; wheat from $1 to $7 per bushel, and labor from $2 to $5 per day. Of course, such prices gradually wore down, but the opportunity for large profits in farming and stock raising continued for a quarter of a century. Our public disbursements, however, were not on the same scale. Up to the year 1859 Uncle Sam paid a good share of the governmental expenses, and at that time our state government was organized under a constitution that has often been called parsimonious.

The sixteenth and thirty-sixth sections of each township, or lands in lieu thereof, were devoted by Congress to common schools; land was also given to found a state