Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/749



bringing over two and a half millions of dollars, which is about the maximum of the trade, a few thousand more packages being sold in 1878, and consider ably less in 1879. Review of board of trade, 1879, in Portland Standard, Feb. 4, 1879. The production of 1881 was 550,000 cases of 48 pounds each, bringing five dollars a case.

The partial failure of several years alarmed capitalists and legislators; and in April 1875 the Oregon and Washington Fish Propagating Company, with a. capital of $30,000, was incorporated. The officers of this company were John Adair, Jr, president, J. W. Cook vice-president, J. G. Megler secretary, Henry Failing treasurer, with J. Adair, J. G. Megler, John West, C. M. Lewis, and J. W. Cook directors. Livingston Stone of Charlestown, Massa chusetts, was chosen to conduct the experiment. A location for a hatching establishment was selected at the junction of Clear creek with the Clackamaa Paver, a few miles from Oregon City, where the necessary buildings were erected and a million eggs put to hatch, of which seventy-five per cent became fish and were placed in the river to follow their ordinary habits of migration and return. In this manner the salmon product was rendered secure. In March 1881, 2,150,000fish were turned out of the hatching-house in a healthy condition. Olympia Courier, April 22, 1881; Portland West Shore, August, 1878; Portland Oreijonian, May 26, 1877.

Besides the Columbia River fisheries, there were others on the Umpqua, Coquille, and Rogue rivers, where salmon are put up in barrels. The Coquille fishery put up 37,000 barrels in 1881. JS. F. Chronicle, Aug. 13, 1881. Im mense quantities of salmon-trout of excellent flavor have been found in the Umpqua, Klamath, Link, aoid other southern streams. In the Klamath, at the ford on the Linkville road, they have been seen in shoals so dense that horses refused to pass over them. In Lost River, in Lake county, the sucker fidi abounded in the same shoals during April and May. Sturgeon, torn cod, flounder, and other edible fish were plentiful along the coast. Since 1862, oysters in considerable quantities have been shipped from Tillamook Bay; and other shell-fish, namely, crabs, shrimps, and mussels, were abundant, and marketable. Or. Statesman, Nov. 3, 1862; Or. Leyid. Docs, 1876, ii. 15; SmaW* Or. 62-5.

Laws have been enacted for the preservation of both salmon and oysters. These acts regulate the size of the meshes, which are 8vr inches long, to permit the young salmon to escape through them; and prohibit fishing from Saturday evening to Sunday evening of every week in the season, for the protection of ail salmon; and forbid the use of the dredge where the water is less than twen ty-four feet in depth at low tide on oyster-beds, or the waste of young oysters. Or. Laws, 1876, 7. With regard to the preservation and propagation of ral- mon, ib has been recently discovered that th e spawn thrown into the Coquille from the fisheries is not wasted, but hatches in that stream, and that there fore that river is a natural piscicultural ground. Coquille City Herald, in 5. F. Bulletin, Nov. 15, 18S3. The same does not appear to be true of the northern rivers. Another difference is in the time of entering the rivers, which is April in the Columbia, and August in the Umpqua and Coquille.

The manufacture of Oregon wool into goods was neglected until April 1856, when a joint-stock association was formed at Salem for the purpose of erecting a woollen-mill. Joseph Watt was the prime mover. William H. Rector was superintendent of construction, and went east to purchase ma chinery. George H. Williams was president of the company, Alfred Stanton vice-president, Joseph G. Wilson secretary, and J. D. Boon treasurer. Watt, Rector, Joseph Holman, L. F. Grover, Daniel Waldo, and E. M. Barnum were directors. Brown?* Salem Dir., 1871. Watt & Barber had a carding- machine in Polk county in 1856, and there appears to have been another in Linn county, which was destroyed by lire in 1862. The company purchased the right of way to bring the water of the Santiam River to Salem, building a canal and taking it across Chemeketa Creek, making it one of the best water- powers on the Pacific coast. Its completion in December was celebrated by the firing of camion. The incorporation of the company as a manufacturing \n