i
SMALL FARMING IN OREGON. 15
gon. However true it may be that the enj of the season to square up, ho is
farming population is one very hard to forced to begin again for another year,
clear of old and well settled prejudices, The man with a small place, on which
it is just as true hat small farming, or he is always raising something for the
farming on a famaur eale than hereto- market, either that which comes to his
fore, is the inevitable for this state; the door in the shape of a butcher, or poul.
logic of the march of events. A large try bnyer, or the wants of the dealers
proportion of those holding large tracts in town, always has money in hand with
of farming lands in this state, partly ob- which to buy goods, to get them whero
tamed under the donation law, and part- they are cheapest This man does not
ly the legitimate accumulation of the have to keep a long-rango field glass in
years since, have become convinced of order to watch the progress of things at
the fact, and have evinced a disposition the other end of his ranch, but ho has a
to divide up, or sell small tracts to new- neat, thrifty, well-cultured, paying place
comers. Of course, other things have of twenty or thirty or fifty acres, and is
operated to bring about this change, out of debt and making money; slowly,
Those who were the recipients of the it may be, but making it all tho samo.
donation land, and who are still living, The assertion that our cities and towns
have grown too old to manage such an do not have imputation enough to make
estate; and an examination will show this small and diversified farming profit
that, largely, the children of this class able, is the veriest nonsense. What is
of early settlers have drifted away from such a statement worth in face of tho
the farm. Again, debt lias gathered over fact that, for tho last two or three years,
against the holding. These are some of we hav j been sending upwards of a mil
the compelling conditions of the change, lion dollars a year to " .lifornia for fruit
Not for an instant, does anyone enter- and dairy products. Out in this splen
tain the thought that any other than com- did valley, rich in all that pertains to
pelling, or selfish, motives would have agriculture, men who count their acres
made it But it has come about; the fig- by the hundreds and thousands are cat
ures given here show that the small- ing California butter. It is a pretty safe
farming class is immigrating to Oregon, proposition, that theso samo men are
And there is every reason for thinking paying heavy interest bills on mortgng
that, on this account, our state has en- es. And so it is an encouraging sign
tered upon a permanently progressive that the immigration now coming is in
and prosperous condition. search of small farms, and that so many
There are tenable arguments enough of our large landholders show a disjo
in favor of this reform in farming in sition to divide up theso immenso prop
this state. If we look over the common erties, for it is obvious, certainly, to
country, we find that of all agricultural any person who has traveled about tho
people, those are the most independent state sufficiently to note tho make-shift
in the states where the fanning lands farming, the sprawling unthrift of field
are held in the smallest tracts. In this and orchards, the lack of prida in the
state, it is the large land holder or grain appearance of homes, that agricultural
grower, who is most crippled by debt reform is the greatest ncod of Oregon.
Such men are growing poorer year by Not only do we want something of that
year. Half the time, this man's crops eastern system of farming, that results
are anticipated by a mortgage to cover from a population trained and educated
a grocery bilL It he gets enough at the ip to tho highest standard of generous