"This Crooked River Valley is about seventy-five miles long, and extends almost due east and west. It is a beautiful valley, with little or no timber in it, with the exception of willows along the river. The average width of the river is about one hundred feet. Now comes the stock country on the south of this river, and along its entire length is one line of hills and plateaus, thickly covered with bunch-grass of the best quality. Every few miles comes in a creek from the highlands back on either side. On these streams, from head to mouth, with but few exceptions, are good farming-lands.
"At this time there are hundreds of thousands of acres of good land lying idle, waiting for the industrious farmer to fence and plow and raise grain on. But what is the use? There is no market for the grain except in limited quantities, as we have no facilities for shipping to the outside world. The consequence is, that if a man does not have money enough to go into the stock-business, he won't come here at all. The one great trouble is to get our supplies. Within a year after the completion of a railroad to this locality the people over in your section will be surprised at the vast amount of grain received from here. As it is now, we have to drive our fat cattle from one to two hundred miles in the winter to find a market, and by the time we get them there they are poor. Give us a railroad, and we can ship our fat stock five hundred miles to market, and afford to sell cheaper than those who live in your (Willamette) valley. We do not have to feed at all. We mark and brand a calf, turn him out on the range, and, when he is four years old, sell him for twenty dollars cash—net profit about seventeen dollars. Does that pay? Give us facilities for getting to a better market, and it will pay better."
Passing still eastward after leaving Prineville along this Crooked River Valley, and then to its junction with the Des Chutes River, the country retains its fertile and promising character.
A FARMER'S OPINION.A farmer of twenty years' experience in Oregon, and who is a thoroughly reliable man, writes thus: "I have known this country well for several years. This fall (1880) I have taken a journey through it right along east, traveling slowly and with a view to settling. What my opinion is you may judge when I tell you that I have made up my mind to settle in the Crooked River Valley, where I shall go with my family in the spring.
"I know no part of Oregon that pleases me better. You have the best of land for wheat, oats, and potatoes. You can get a good garden, and grow all the vegetables you want. You have unlimited range for your stock, where they will get fat on the natural grasses, and where you can put up all the hay you want. Cattle, horses, and sheep do equally well out there. You are going into a healthy climate, away from all fever and ague or any other sickness of that nature; and you are going to a place where the land is bound to be worth four times its present value when the Oregon Pacific Railroad is opened."
Beginning the ascent of the Cascades, you pass through and over some twenty miles of rough lava country, interspersed with strips of scattering timber-land, and then come to Fish Lake and Clear Lake, the paradise of the fisherman, the hunter, and the berry-gatherer and botanist.
Before I leave the description of Eastern Oregon, let me quote from one more letter from a settler of last year out in the Prineville country: "I am located on a ranch on Camp Creek, and eight miles below the famous 'soap-holes' (silver-mines). We can raise almost anything out here, unless it is a mortgage. We have all the potatoes, turnips, onions, carrots, and beets we want; all were raised on our ranch, and, by-the-way, they were immense. I pulled one turnip that measured thirty-four and a half inches in circumference, and quite a number ran as high as thirty inches. Early-rose potatoes do remarkably well here. I have in about five acres of rye, and will sow about twenty acres of wheat and oats in the spring."
I should add that the towns in Eastern Oregon, away from the Columbia, are beginning to assume considerable importance.
Baker City was described in December, 1880, as having about one thousand inhabitants, while the amount of business transacted would average fully $450,000. There were then six substantial fire-proof business structures, and two large school-buildings, namely, "St. Joseph's" and "The Sisters of the Holy Names." The former is said to be a large four-story structure, in brick and stone, of the pure Gothic style of the fourteenth century, with accommodations for about one hundred and fifty boarding and day scholars; it is managed by a Roman Catholic priest named De Roo.
Prineville is a very lively and bustling place, with about the same number of inhabitants. It is growing fast, several fine buildings having been recently erected, among them a convenient and substantial church. There are three large general stores, supplied with heavy stocks of goods; from this, as a distributing center, the stockmen and ranchers for fifty miles and more in every direction fetch the necessaries of life. In the summertime ten or a dozen heavily-loaded wagons may be seen any day starting out along this road (which was called no road!) for their distant homes.