Eager Desire In The Acquisition Of Territory On The Part Of These
Pioneer State-Builders Was More Truly Boundless Than The Wilderness
They Were In, And Their Unconscionable Patriotism Was Equaled Only By
Their Belligerence.
For here, while negotiations were pending for the
location of the northern boundary, originated the celebrated "Fifty-four forty
Or fight," about as reasonable a war-cry as the "North Pole
or fight." Yet sad was the day that brought the news of the signing
of the treaty fixing their boundary along the forty-ninth parallel,
thus leaving the little land-hungry settlement only a mere quarter-million of miles!
As the Willamette is one of the most foodful of valleys, so is the
Columbia one of the most foodful of rivers. During the fisher's
harvest time salmon from the sea come in countless millions, urging
their way against falls, rapids, and shallows, up into the very heart
of the Rocky Mountains, supplying everybody by the way with most
bountiful masses of delicious food, weighing from twenty to eighty
pounds each, plump and smooth like loaves of bread ready for the oven.
The supply seems inexhaustible, as well it might. Large quantities
were used by the Indians as fuel, and by the Hudson's Bay people as
manure for their gardens at the forts. Used, wasted, canned and sent
in shiploads to all the world, a grand harvest was reaped every year
while nobody sowed. Of late, however, the salmon crop has begun to
fail, and millions of young fry are now sown like wheat in the river
every year, from hatching establishments belonging to the Government.
All of the Oregon waters that win their way to the sea are a tributary
to the Columbia, save the short streams of the immediate coast, and
the Umpqua and Rogue Rivers in southern Oregon. These both head in
the Cascade Mountains and find their way to the sea through gaps in
the Coast Range, and both drain large and fertile and beautiful
valleys. Rogue River Valley is peculiarly attractive. With a fine
climate, and kindly, productive soil, the scenery is delightful.
About the main, central open portion of the basin, dotted with
picturesque groves of oak, there are many smaller valleys charmingly
environed, the whole surrounded in the distance by the Siskiyou,
Coast, Umpqua, and Cascade Mountains. Besides the cereals nearly
every sort of fruit flourishes here, and large areas are being devoted
to peach, apricot, nectarine, and vine culture. To me it seems above
all others the garden valley of Oregon and the most delightful place
for a home. On the eastern rim of the valley, in the Cascade
Mountains, about sixty miles from Medford in a direct line, is the
remarkable Crater Lake, usually regarded as the one grand wonder of
the region. It lies in a deep, sheer-walled basin about seven
thousand feet above the level of the sea, supposed to be the crater of
an extinct volcano.
Oregon as it is today is a very young country, though most of it seems
old.
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