Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/284

 that I ever saw before. One man raised onions that were larger than a Tea Saucer, or so large that a man could not get them in his pockets and he had a number of hundred bushels, and they are worth from $4 to 5 dollars pr bushel. All that he did to them was to plough the ground, sow the seed, and scratch it in. They sow wheat here once in two or three years only, and it is alltogether beyond any that I ever saw in the States, in quality. They rais the white wheat. Oats grow first rate here, and sel for about $2.50 pr bushel. The Potatoes for breakfast are on the table now, and there is not one of them but what is as large as my fist. Tomatoes, Mellons, Pumpkins Squashes Cucumbers, &c all grow first rate here, better, a great deal better than they do in Illinois. But what you have heard about the timber is about correct, so far as the fir, pine & ceder is concerned, but the oak is miserable stuf, and but a very little of it. There is not enough of it to last the inhabitants ten years, but the fir, it grows just as straight as anything you ever see, tapering gradually to the very top, seldom less than two hundred feet, with small limbs from about half way to the top, and alwais topt out with the main stem. The waters produce abundently. There is about six diferent kinds of Salmon the Red, the White, the Black the spring the fall, and the speckle Salmon. These are a salt-water fish, and come up into the rivers in the time of freshets, and when they come to any fall of water, (a mill dam for instance where the water is runing over,) they will congregate there and have a time of their own in trying to jump up over the dam. I have seen thousands of them in such places, they will jump from one to six feet out of the water. At such times they are easily taken with a large hook made for the purpos, and put upon the end of a long poll. I