Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-02-14
NORTHERN NEIGHBoRs.
TIE WEATHER UP IN OREGON AND THE
AGRICULTURAL OUTLOOK.
Orchards and Cold Weather Changing
crops-Resting the soil-Money-
Politics-Etc.
PORTLAND, February 7, 1880.

PORTLAND, February 7, 1880.
At last we have touch of spring and |
CLEAN of sunshine, after weeks of frost and |
clouds that gave us all things by turns but |
pleasant weather through the entire month |
of January. There was little teamwork |
done in the month just past there was
forbidding course of storm and twice as
much rain as in January, 1879, but since
the beginning of February the word from
far and near is, that farmers are blowing
with all their might, and should they get
their spring work done early, there is not
much to be feared from recurrence of rust,
which is certainly an incident of climatic
conditions, and only attendant upon grow
ing grain that is late in growth, in
an abnormal season. Last year we
had two abnormal seasons, for the
winter and early spring months were so
consecutively rainy that farmers did little
blowing and less sowing in February or
March, and it was May before the greater
portion of spring wheat was sowed, great
deal of it being put in all through the
month of June, and on very low and wet
land some was sowed late in June. Every
thing was for a while favorable to the
growth of this late-sown grain, and no
season could have been more propitious
had the rains not continued into the mid.
die of July, which the memory of man
had never known before. The warm
rains and succeeding very hot weather of
the middle of July gave the conditions
most favorable to rust, and half
the wheat in the valley was ruined.
The fall-sown wheat did not suf-
fer, nor did wheat I myself sowed
on high land in March and April meet
with any disaster, but all the wheat sown
in May and the latter part of April was
quite or nearly dead loss. One week /
travelled through three counties and saw
such prospect as never was known, and
the next the land was smitten with blight
that made ones heart sick to look upon.
In the columns of your paperI saw it stated
that California also suffers much from rust
blight, but with us the fall wheat never
meets with loss from rust, probably be-
cause our spring months never furnish
weather warm enough to produce the con-
/ ditons. 1t is hardly probable that the
State Of Oregon will soon again furnish the
same conditions of backward spring and
wet summer that caused the rust blight of
1879.
AGRICULTURAL MATTERS.
As the RECORD UNION circulates so much
more than any other journal among the
farmers of your State, I generally take
pains to give particulars of farming opera
tions in Oregon, which have some insight
Of as my own business is intimately con-
nected Herewith. 1t is a habit | have to
tell the truth, and not gloss over facts that
show the disadvantages of our State. We
are blessed in many particulars, and in no
need OF apooglsts, but the fact seems to be
that when the world was turned over to
the present race of man the Garden of Eden
was left out. There is no country without
its disadvantages, but Oregon has enough
good points in its favor to far overbalance
those that are Objectionable. 1t is
true as gospel that in 1878 the
wheat-growers of the Willamette had
partial failure OF crops, so that their ex-
pectations were disappointed, though the
crop could not be called failure; and in
| 1879 we We're afflicted with rust, so that
many were ruined. But while the two
worst harvests ever known came on US con-
secutively, we have ne cause for discour-
a2ement. 1t simply shows that we boosted
| too much when we said there were no fail
ures here; for the spring crop of 1879 was
an utter failure. At the same time there
were unexampled harvests all over Eastern
Oregon and Washington Territory, region
ten times as extensive as this valley, and
that will soon make the surplus for
export, of the Columbia, equal to
that shipped from San Francisco.
There is much encouragement felt Just
now, because people are financially embar-
raised and so much Inundated, but we
have splendid indications of good crop
for 1880; the area of fall-sown wheat is
larger than ever known before, for every
farmer made the most of propitious sea-
son and secured all the fall sowing he
could. 1t now looks well, not having
suffered the least from frost, as, when the
heavy frost came, it was preceded by snow,
and the wheat was rather profted thereby.
The danger from frost is about over, and
the wheat spreads and grows finely this
pleasant weather. So, with the further
prospect that spring wheat can be sown
IHlS iuohtn, IHelt Is uO iedSOH why Tile
farmers of this valley should not keep up
courage and hope for the best But it does
not seem as if any of us had a right to
anticipate very good prices for the next
crop, as Europe can hardly be expected to
have poor crops continuously, and the
American wheat grower is more apt to ex-
tend than curtail his operations.
THE ORCHARDS
About Christmas time, as you know,
we had touch of arctic weather, and |
"they say " that one night the thermom.
eter went down s. below zero, and the
mischief of it was that Immediately after
the sun came out warm, and the cold spell |
was thing of the past, but it left its
mark upon the orchards, for the suns rays |
infringed upon the frozen trees and
directly melted the frozen sap, and it is
unfortunately true that the trees here are
now destitute of sap in winter, and the
consequence is the south bark of many |
orchard trees is dead, or there are dead
spots on that side that will materially |