The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1872-05-10
nragnn-A Birdls-eYe View.

Oregon is now part of beautiful
picture. Invisible fairies have been
throwing shuttles, weaving the web of
grasses that, softer and cleaner than
royal velvets, carpet all her hills and
valleys with richest green. Long
months past, the chemists have been at
work, compOunding and preparing
Tvrean dyes, for the busy-tingered artists
who now, night and day, are laying them
upon buds and blooms. The trees are
laden, bending, with delieately painted
blossoms, and tinted, swelling leaf-buds.
The farmer, cheerfully chirruplng to his
horses, as the plow turns the rlch mold,
has only to lift his eyes to see Mounts
Hood, Jefferson, Adams, Saint Helens,
and numerous lesser peaks, snow
crowned, lifting their heads far up into
bluest skies. Grand dOmes, clothed with
majesty; magnificent pillars, supporting
the floor of heaven; the streams OF untold
centuries have beat against them; swell
ing floods, summer suns, and the early
and the latter rains, are pOwerless to
dissolve their icy, eloud-draped gar
ments.
Then the hilIs-the everlasting hills
far-sweeping, swelling, wooded hills
miniature mountains, where the bear
and the reindeer, the cougar and wolf,
tain treasures i'm spars, and masts, and
fire-grained, hardwood TIMBER that
will enrich busy thousands, after this
generation of people shall have passed
away. Blue and dark, almost impene-
trable, they stand, grim guardians be-
tween the valleys and any possible
eruption of volcanoes from the distant
mountains.
The near rfOrests-Odorous with resin of
fir trees, holding in their shady depths
the sources of innumerable springs
securely guard the bright, leaping
streams whose crystal waters make glad
all this beautiful land. Forests skirt the
valleys, and, in many n curve and solid
square, stand along the banks of the
the winding rivers. These fertile val
| leys, beautiful praries, and sloping hills
will, in the near future, produce bread
| for millions of people. There are thous-
ands of acres where thorough culture
will produce forty bushels of clean,
plump wheat to the acre. One valley
| 1.-THE Willamette), contains 100000 of
acres, and not more than 100000 acres
are under cultivation.
None but those who have carefully
travelled over the country by private
conveyance can fully appreciate the
variety, extent, and beauty of the hills
and valleys of this young State. Wool
and wheat, cattle and horses, fiOcks and
herds, meadows and green pastures,
orchards and grain-fields, mills and
workshops, and happy homes-a hos
pitable, kind, and waTm-heaTted people
this is Oregon.
! We will go down the Willamette one
hundred and twenty-five miles, to
| PORTLAND,
and find twelve thousand people, two
railroads, the city on both sides of the
river. At her wharves are ships and
steamers, loading for China and Japan,
the Sandwich Islands, Mexico and South
America, Puget Sound, Alaska, and the
extreme North Pacific. In few months,
there will be a line of vessels direct to
London and Liverpool. They return
with goods, furs, fish, oil, ivory, silks
and tea, and men. The commerce of
this part of the Pacific coast is yet in its
infancy. When the four hundred
millions of China shall begin to ask for
flour and fruit, who can estimate the
importance and value of the commercial
position and capabilities of Oregon and
Washington Territory ?-lErs. Carrie F.
Young.