Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/91

Rh for the dry Summer, the heavy rainfall of the three other seasons—this without artificial irrigation.

The pioneers were an active race, both in mind and in body. They were sharply aware of the new inventions as each came along and managed to bring them here, chiefly by sea, despite the general poverty of the country in the 50s. It would not be fair to judge the first generation of pioneers from the example of their slip-shod descendants, who have permitted the old farms in Willamette Valley to go unkempt and farm machinery to rust and waste in the fields. The first pioneers were not moss-backs; far from it. They were a stirring race of men and women; their twenty-five hundred mile trek across the plains shows them to have been hardy and untiring; absence of crime among them shows their sense of individual responsibility highly developed; also their regard for the golden rule. Marital infidelity was rare and divorce was unknown. They toiled early and late, and thought hardship the natural and inevitable portion. These habits were produced through generations of hard work and individual thrift in the Middle West and in the Atlantic Coast colonies. Their descendants in the Willamette Valley somehow did not inherit these characteristics, perhaps because life here was "easy," on account of rich soil and mild climate. It is well known that the sturdiest peoples are those which have had to struggle hard against natural disadvantages, such as those of Northern Europe. It seems not good for men and women to live without effort. Perhaps there was too much ease for the successors of the pioneers in the Willamette Valley. If so, this condition did not last long. The soil after a while "petered out" and its possessors had to go to work with a vim. In recent years they have been working to good purpose and the effects are good both on the land and on the individual character.