The Yamhill Country [pp. 498-503]

THE YAMHILL COUNTRY
grower of Illinois and Dakota. This
profit will be still further increased when
the Nicaragua canal is completed, as it
will save the expense nowcaused by the
English law, which compels the sacking of
all wheat that crosses the equator.
The oat crop is heavy and the quality
superior. Most of it is milled for table
use. The grain weighs from thirty-eight
to forty-five pounds to the bushel. The
local markets frequently quote Oregon
oats at forty cents while Chicago prices
are ranging from eighteen to twenty cents.
The plant is always healthy, the roots
striking down through the soft, rich soil
and sending up materials to make sixty
and seventy bushels to the acre, or even
one hundred and sometimes more.
Barley and rye grow well and the grain
is of good quality, but these products have
not commanded the. attention that has
been bestowed on wheat and oats.
Indian corn does not thrive, but table
corn of the finest quality can be raised
anywhere. The summers are not long
enough nor hot enough to ripen the grain.
Hops were raised in northwestern Oregon
during the prevalence of high prices for
that product.
Vegetables of all kinds grow in the
Willamette valley and a family can live
as comfortably and cheaply there on "a
little farm well tilled" as is possible anywhere in the world.
Fowls do well, and almostevery one has
a few sheep. The dairying industry
should succeed admirably, as the moist air
and rich land both contribute to make this
one of the best forage sections in the
United States. As soon as the timber is
removed the soil germinates white clover
as readily as the fields of Kentucky produce blue grass. The butter produced
in this valley is of the finest flavor, and
Oregon cheese has long been one of the
luxuries.
Alsike, red clover, timothy, redtop,
vetch, orchard grass, wild oats, and white
clover, are "lush grasses" wherever the
Willamette dairyman scatters the seed.
It is estimated that the cost of cattle feed
in the richest variety will not exceed ten
cents a day in the Yamhill country, as
against eighteen and twenty cents in
similar sections of older States.
Thomas Shaw, Professor of Animal Industry in the Agricultural Department of
the University of Minnesota, exploiting
the resources of this country for beef
production, says the farmers can easily
grow steers that will weigh twelve hundred to fourteen hundred pounds at two
years old. These steers can be raised on
skim milk and adjuncts in the milk season,
and on oats that grow at the rate of one
hundred bushels an acre. They can be
kept growing on succulentfoods with some
oats, and the four months they can be
fattened on peas and oats, and they will
bring fifty dollars each. Professor Shaw
is of the opinion that mutton as good as
the best produced in England can be raised
in northern Oregon, and he asserts that
Denmark itself cannot raise a better quality of pork.
Notwithstanding conditions so favorable to the establishment of dairy farms
and the production of dairy staples, even
the home market is as yet but poorly supplied by home industry, and much money
is sent out of the State every year for
butter and cheese, in return for which
the importers offer an article of very inferior quality.
In the article of condensed milk alone
a great market awaits the enterprise of
manufacturers. More than a hundred
thousand dollars' worth of this staple is
consumed on the Pacific coast and within
easy shipping distance of Pacific coast
points. Should it be manufactured on
this coast, the manufacturer would be assured of a saving of. one dollar on every
hundred pounds in freight rates. The
milk in this form costs about three dollars
a case or less, and the selling price at
wholesale is from four to six dollars.
There is every natural possibility that
the strip of country extending north and
south the entire length of the State, from
fifty to one hundred miles wide, bordering the Pacific ocean, may become one
of the great fruit-producing regions of the
world. The Oregon apple is as firm, as
juicy, and keeps as well, as any grown in
the United States. Oregon cider rivals
the most popular beverages for private
tables as well as for public bars. A farmer in Benton county, a rich region lying on the west bank of the Willamette,
savs: " In my orchard I have a few
greening trees from which I gathered between eight and nine boxes to the tree,
that sold for seventy-nine cents a box,
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