A few American merchants, with a little capital, would give an impulse to trade, encourage the settlers, make it a profitable business to themselves, and add much to the character of the country. There is scarcely any branch of business that might not be carried on successfully in Oregon. Flouring mills, saw-mills, carding machines, fulling and cloth dying, tin shops, potteries, tanyards, &c., &c., would all be profitable; and in truth they are all much needed in the country.
The price of a flour barrel is one dollar; that of common split-bottom chairs twenty-four dollars per dozen; a common dining table without varnish, fourteen dollars; half soling a pair of shoes or boots, two dollars; cutting and splitting rails, one dollar and twenty-five cents per hundred; eighteen inch shingles, four dollars and fifty cents per thousand; cutting cord wood, from seventy-five cents to one dollar per cord; carpenter's wages from two to three dollars per day; laborer's from one to two dollars per day; plough irons fifty cents per pound; stocking a plough, from four to six dollars. Wheat, eighty cents per bushel; potatoes fifty cents; corn sixty-two and a half cents; oats fifty cents; beef four to six cents per pound; pickled salmon by the barrel, nine to twelve dollars for shipment; work cattle are from seventy-five to one hundred dollars per yoke; cows from twenty-five to fifty dollars each; American work horses from one hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars. I have never heard of any sheep being sold, but presume they would bring from five to ten dollars. A tailor will charge from six to twelve dollars for making a dress coat. Hogs are high, though there seems to be plenty of them in the country. The common kinds of poultry are plenty. It is a singular fact that the honey bee is not found in the Oregon territory, neither wild nor domesticated. Beef hides are two dollars each; a chopping axe from four and a half to six dollars; a drawing knife, three to five dollars; hand-saws, six dollars; crosscut saws, eight to twelve dollars; mill-saws, twenty-five dollars. There is but little hollow ware in the country. No stationery of any kind could be had when I was there. The people are in great need of school books; some sections being destitute of schools in consequence of not being able to procure books. Good teachers are also much needed.
I had expected to find the winters much more severe than they turned out to be. I had no thermometer, and no means {119} of ascertaining the degrees of heat and cold, but I kept an account of the wet and dry weather, cloudy, clear, &c., &c., commencing on the first day of November and ending on the fifth of March, which was the day I started on my return to the United States.
The 1st and 2d days of November were clear; 3d rainy; then clear until the 11th; cloudy until the 13th. Then cloudy, with slight showers of rain until the 20th; 21st and 22nd clear; 23d rainy; 24th and 25th were cloudy, but no rain; the weather was then clear until the 29th, when it again clouded up.
30th of November and first of December were cloudy; 2d and 3rd clear, with frosty nights. On the 4th a misty rain; 5th and 6th were cloudy; from 7th to 10th clear and cool, with frost every night. On the 11th it rained nearly all day, and on the 12th about half the day. 13th and 14th were cloudy. From the 15th to 22d clear and pleasant, with frosty nights; it thawed through the day in the sun all that froze at night, but in the shade remained frozen. From the 22d to 24th cloudy, with showers of drizzling rain; 25th, 26th and 27th rain nearly all the time, but not very copiously; the mornings were foggy. The 28th and 29th were clear, but very foggy in the forepart of the day; 30th and 31st rain about half the time.
From the 1st to 3d of January it was squally, with frequent showers of rain; 4th cloudy, but no rain; 5th rained nearly all day. From the 6th to the 12th, clear and pleasant, being slightly foggy in the mornings; from 13th to 17th rained about half each day, and nearly all the night; 18th and 19th, cloudy without rain. The 20th and 21st, slight rain nearly all the time; 22d was cloudy; 23d and 24th, rain about half of each day; 25th rained all day, 26th cloudy, without rain, 27th was rainy, some heavy showers; 28th was clear; 29th, 30th and 31st, were showery and blustering, raining about half the time, and foggy.
The 1st of February was clear; 2d cloudy, 3d rainy; 4th and 5th were a little cloudy, but pleasant; 6th and 7th, a few slight showers; 8th and 9th rainy and quite cool; snow was seen on the lower peaks of the Coast range of mountains, but none in the valley. The 10th was cloudy, at night a little frost; 11th was rainy; 12th and 13th rained all the time; 14th and 15th were nearly clear, with light frosts. The weather remained clear until the 23rd, with light frosts, but not cold enough to freeze the ground; 24th cloudy; 25th clear; 26th, 27th, and 28th rained all the time.
{120} First of March, rained half the day; 2d cloudy, 3d rained all day; 4th cloudy, 5th was showery—making in all about twenty days that it rained nearly all the day, and about forty days that were clear, or nearly so; the remainder of the days were cloudy and showery. A number of the days set down as rainy, a person with a blanket coat could have worked out all the day without having been wet. Much of the time it rained during the night, when it was clear through the day. I should think that two-thirds of the rain fell during the night.
No snow fell in the valleys, nor were there frosts more than fifteen nights. Ice never formed much over a quarter of an inch in thickness. The little streams and "swales" sometimes rise so high as to make it difficult to get about for a few days; but they are short, and soon run down. But little labour has yet been bestowed on the public roads. The Willamette river is the highway upon which nearly all the traveling is done, and upon which nearly all the products of the country are conveyed. The numerous streams can be easily bridged, and when this is done, there will be but little difficulty in traveling at any period of the year.