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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1881)
IIOOI) RIVKK VAI.I.KV, WASCO COI N TV. ORKCOX. HV )K. W. L. AI'AMk. Away up in ihc mountains, seventy mile from Portland, hihI midway be tween :he Cascades of the Columbia and The Dalle, lies Hood River Val ley. Where the Cascade mountains end on the cant aide, the valley begin and terminate only a few mile east ward, at the base of a lofty range of gras covered and pine covered hill. It is called a valley, hence the disap pointment nmny feel on seeing it for the first time; for instead of a low al luvial liottom, ready for the plow, mid almost on a level with the Columbia, and the river that curries the melting snow of Ml. Hood through it, they find a stretch of table land, forming a plateau from six to seven hundred feet above high water murk. You look down from its northern line of bluffs, along which runs the State road, and at the foot of which will soon run the railroad, and see the Columbia, milled by almost constant sea breezes in sum mer, and plowed by steamers, barges and skills, with here and there nn In dian canoe or swimming nntler, utmost the year around. Hood River also lies far lwlow the table land on whose bunk stands here and there a settler's cabin. You can rido on horseback or even drive a wagon on the bluffs in sight of the river for miles, and see far llow you, the maddened waters, dash ing against huge boulders, foaming and roaring as the icy torrent hastens to mingle itself with the peaceful Colum bia. This seems to le the nutivc home of the sH-cklcd and silver tront; always fat, and from twelve to twenty-seven inches long. I have Mood on its banks in Summer and felt "a pleasure in the pathless woods," and "society where none intrudes," 1 listened to the roar of its waters before me and heard be hind mc the singing of balmy zephyr turned to music by the leaf chords of a thousand pines, freighting the atmos phere with a balsamic odor that car ries life to failing lungs and gives the chronic a new lease of life. The val ley proper stretches along the Colum bia for nearly seven miles and runs hack In a V hapc twelve or fifteen mile, terminating near the base of Mt. Hood. Perhaps nut a tenth of it is prairie at it it dotted here ami there with clusten of pines, or ornamcnud THE WEST SHORE. with lcauliful groves of oak, looking like ancient orchards. Fir and white pine suitable for lumber uie found in abundance from six to twelve miles back from the Columbia. Little of the primeval forest has been disturbed, as lumbermen, who so often visit it, in variably return declaring that Hood River is so rapid, rough and tortuous that no log could be driven down it. Many have talked of building a flume some twelve miles long to raft manufac tured lumber to the steamboat landing. Hut the expense is too heavy for any man who has yet longed to uttuck the remote forest. Much of the oak tim ber is cut intocordwood by the settlers, hauled from three to six miles, and sent to The Dalles on barges, where it usually sells for from five to eight dob lars a cord. Two saw mills arc work ing up timber handy to settlements, and supplying the neighbors at prices ranging from ten to fifteen dollars n thousand feet. One of them is cutting railroad ties and delivering them on the banks of the Columbia, six miles distant, for ten dollars a thousand feet. One can drive a wagon for miles through the oak and pine groves with almost no underbrush to obstruct the wav. This is true only of a part of the valley lying several miles back from the Columbia. There arc' proba bly forty or fifty families with three school houses located in the valley, much of which is unsettled. The soil is a light friable clay, sandy, mellow kind to work, and apparently thin. It is unlike any other soil I ever saw es pecially that of Viiginia. John Ran dolph in replying to a member of Con gress, who had twitted him with lack ing an education, replied: "The gen tleman from Massachusetts reminds me of some of the lands in Virginia, poor by nature and cultivation has made them worse." Cultivation here seems to improve the lauds. Crops seem to lie poorest the first two years, and grow In-tter by deep plowing and thorough cultivation for many years. My lands which seemed to be worn out under the treatment of my predecessor now yield thirty bushels of corn ami from thirty to forty bushels of wheat to the acre, while new land returns only about half that amount. The soil though light and tan.ly rests on a rocky bed and does not wash. The bed rock in many placet lies near the surface, and the melting snows of the mountains January, ti seems to come trickling: down its upper surface in ten thousand little rivulets which are drawn up by deep plowing to nourish veg ration even in the hottest parts of Summer. The presence of the underground riv ulets is attested by a thousand little springs that burst from the banks of creeks and keep .them flush nl! Sum mer. The whole valley seems to rest on a bed of gold. The dirt from every creek I have tried, yields particles of fine gold to every pan of dirt, though not in paying quantities. The young man who went to California with hi "washbowl on his knees," sought dig gings back on the old farm, singing as he went: "I expect by the course of nater To find sonic gold in every later." Just so here, we find more gold in "Inters," at a cent a pound, that in dirt at a mill to every pan. What avails it here, that, as in India, "many an ancient river pours down its golden sand, where every prospect pleases and only man is vile," while we have to raise potatoes without the benefit of clergy, except now and then a missionary comes up from Portland to fish for trout and throws out a hook on Sunday for souls with about the same success as he who "bobs for whale" in Hood River. Two excellent Sunday Schools are in full blast with cultured and exceed ingly exemplary superintendents, which saves this valley from f.he fate of ancient Sodom. The lack of church privileges seems to be "an evil under the sun." A Methodist preacher, full of missionary zeal, characteristic of the persuasion, after a series of un successful efforts left in disgust. But I hear he partly promised to return some day and preach from the text, "Let God be true, and every man (and woman in Hood River) a liar." The climate here is sui generis nothing exactly like it in North Amer ica. It has less rain than the Willam ette valley, and more than the Dalles and the btretch of country between it and the Blue Mountains. A fair average sample of the difference gen erally, was seen in a rain which lasted for hours and soaked the ground thoroughly when I was in Portland in the Summer of 1S7S. In Hood River the rain barely wet through a man's shirt, while at the Dalles they only had