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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 1881)
56 THE WEST SHORE. February, 1881 CRAPE CULTURE IX ORKCON. California has the advantage, not only of Oregon, but of every other stale in the Union, in the cultivation of the grape. Hut it must he remembered that it in confined to wine-making from tropica! grapes, such uh would not grow in more limn four other state in the Federal galaxy. And yet, a a rule, her wines me heavy in their alcoholic pro-pi-rticn and, unless great changes arc made in the process of vintage to de stroy (heir heavy propensities, will never become favorite with wine drinker. Oregon has the opportunity to be. come a wine-growing Male if the proper kinds of which are introduced, tier climate 'in mi much at variance with thai ot California that it would lie a sheer wiiMc of lime, labor and capital, to introduce the Trench and Italian varieties of grape or even the Mission gnijic brought from Spain to California by the pioiiK adherents of Junipero Serra. A different variety of grape in needed, one heller adapted to the tern penile .one. More than fifty years ago, a quaint and eccentric Jersey man emigrated from ihc cider-barrel Mate to Ohio. Settling on (he rolling hills near the now great city of Cincinnati, ho began to plant the Calnwlm grape with the idea of making brandy. Just then along came a Frenchman who gave him the sug gciion of champagne from American grapes. No sooner said than done. An hunt later, Nkikh.ah Loni;wohtii was on his way to New Orleans to contract for bottles and other fixtures to be used in the manufacture of his upaikling Catawba wine. It was the let effervescent wine ever made in America, and Longworth died worth eight million of dollars. Hut the growth of the city of Cincinnati made the vim-VAid mi valuable for building puitMisck that it was cut up into loU and Catawba wine became a neglected if not forgotten industry. Our own iden 1 that Oregon in the place where Catawba gra,c can be grown w ith great profit, especially in the arid hillsides of Wasco and Uma tilla counties wheic good grape lands can be had at government price. It it proiMtkilion which hat plenty of money in it, to our not ion. The only successful operation at the cast is on Canaudaigua Lake in New York state; but the quality of wine so far produced has not equalled that produced by Longworth on the terraced hills where now stand the more fashionable resi dences of.Porkopolis. Up to date, the only wine made in our state has been produced in Jackson county by Raphael Morat, J. N. T. Miller, I'eter ltritt and others, to nn aggregate of about four thousand gal lons per year. The distillation of brandy from peaches and plums has proven more profitable in that section and wine-making will yet have to give way to it, at least in that locality. The man who will take up a sloping hill with a southern exposure, in cither Wasco or Umatilla, set out his Catawba grapes and make them into wine, will make a fortune. We import from Cali fornia a million gallons a year of wine inferior to what we could make at home if a little pains were taken. Who will be the plucky man to take hold of what will enrich both himself and the state of his adoption? A HARD WINTER. Well, it has been n little inclined to be severe on poor people, that's n fact Hut let us look at the case through a pair of disinterested spectacles, as were. Eastern Oregon loses a large valuation of sheep mid horned cattle by continuous snow storms while the Willamette valley loses! miles of fencing and other valuable improvements by two freshets. Let us look and see if ourselves, "the webfoot gentry," as tncy style us at the Ntn rrancisco hotels, are the only sufferers. At Los Angeles, Cul., the garden city of America, they have had frosts and ice without cessation. I lie winter orange crop has lieeu a total failure and this remember, in that fair land of unbroken sunshine and unfading llowers, which realizes the ideal "Happy Valley" of Rassclas. V hen you consider that Los Angeles lies 015 mile south of Portland, and only iS miles from the sen, you will wonder that ice of an inch thickness lay in the gutters of that city eft , mi tor tour uays in January. 1 he orange crop is to that place what the wheat crop is to Weston or Kugeno City.Or, When all is lost that licoiileileixMid Hut the Willamette is so subject to overflow and carries away so much fencing, you say ! Did you ever see a rise on the Sacramento river, Cal.,ordoyou know what has happened there in this month? Do you know that the great alley which heads up at Redding and opens out at Collinsvillc, has been one vast inland sea for a distance of 345 miles? Ten years ago, the Central Pacific lords bought up all the steam boats on the upper Sacramento river to keep them from competing with their road. This winter their road has been washed away tosuch an extent as to com pel them to put on boats once more, and the steamer Dana arrived at Red Bluff the 14th, the first boat that had reached that point in eight years and her arrival was the first communication with the outer world they had enjoyed in ten days. The line of railroad between Sacra. mcnto and Davisville, the direct line of communication between San Fransisco' and the East, is washed, out to such an extent that the superintending engineer of the C. P. R. R. advises its abandon ment. This, too, after building that monster ferry boat across Caryuncs straits, to ferry the eastern trains, at a cost of $400,000. The line between Red Bluff ami Redding has never paid two per cent, interest on its cost, nnd is likely to be abandoned. The damages to farms and improvements in the three counties of Tehama, Colusa and Butte, arc estimated at a million of dollars. As the counties of San Joaquin, Sacra mento, Yolo, Contra Costa, Yuba, Solano and Stanislaus, arc nearer to the tide-level, they must have suffered in a still greater degree. upon for sustenance, what difference manufactory of Catawba wine now in docs it make where you reside? There are worse locations than Ore gon, alter all. 1 on think you have too much water here, but if you go to Ari zona, you will have about none at all. California is a great state, to be sure, but then she has her unsound land titles and her great monopolies which render it impossible for the poor man to make more than a bare existence. Oregon it the better state of the two, and if your experience had been the same as the writer's, you would coincide with him. In the past two years, several Oregon millionaires have pulled up stakes and settled in California. They will be glad to get back before they are many year older.