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Soil Repair in Willamette Valley 59

an American, who hoped to establish a business in Oregon rivaling that of the Hudson's Bay Company, had hogs, cattle, and goats, from Sandwich Islands, and grain and garden plants, at Wapato (Sauvie's) Island, on Columbia River. Wyeth relinquished his outfit to the British Company, which in 1841 had there a dairy of 100 cows. In the year that Young and Wyeth were laying the foundations of American agriculture — 1835 — Jason Lee, the American Methodist mis- sionary, began farming near Salem. Dr. Marcus Whitman, the American Board missionary (Presbyterian-Congregational- Dutch Reformed) did the same near Walla Walla in 1837. Whitman and his associates were massacred by Indians in 1847, and after that, little or nothing was done in farming in Eastern Oregon and Eastern Washington for twenty or twenty-five years. Progress in Willamette Valley and at Puget Sound, however, went on.

After these pioneer American farmers — Young, Wyeth, Lee, Whitman — came a growing influx of American agriculturists from the Middle West, until their ascendancy over the British resulted in their establishment of the Provisional Government of 1843 and in the boundary treaty of 1846, under which British abandoned claims north of Columbia River as far as the present Canadian line. American farmer-settlers spread to Puget Sound with the Simmons party in 1845 ; to Umpqua Valley with the Applegates in 1849, and to Rogue River Valley in 1852. The most successful farmer of the Simmons party was George Bush, a colored man of rare intelligence, industry and force of character.

III.

The Willamette Valley was the first part of the Oregon Country to attract settlers, and thence they spread over the Northwest This was natural and necessary. This valley was a paradise for pioneers. Nature had endowed it with every possible attraction. Moreover, through the rivers, it was ac- cessible from the sea. The first settlers in the Pacific North-