The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1904-09-29
URGES THE WEARY
TOILERS TO GO west

Rev. Arthur Gushing Dill, D. D.,
until recently pastor of the First Con.
gregational church, Niagara Falls, ac-
companied by Mrs. Dill, spent last Sat-
urday in Hood River. Rev. DIR. Dill is
making tour of the Pacific coast, and
while visiting the bounding West is
entertaining the people OF his home
town with descriptions of the country
published in the Niagara newspapers.
Rev. Dr. Dill went for drive through
the valley Saturday morning. He was
enchanted by the beauties Of the mag
nifcent scenery to be viewed here, and
while he had always considered New
York the banner apple state, he declared
he never saw fruit to equal the apples
that hang in great clusters on the trees
in the Hood River orchards. In his
next letter he proposes to explain the
question asked in New York--why it
was that during the holidays of 1908,
Oregon Yellow Newtown Pippins sold
in London for $3.65 a bushel, netting
the producer 1925 box, while the best
and finest apples raised in other regions
sold only for 81 and 1925.
In recent letter to the Cataract
Journal Of Niagara Falls, Rev. Mr. Dill,
in urging people to leave the crowded
East for the West says:
Niagara is sure to grow. Your COM
ing will not depopulate it. The power
city beside the rushing cataract will
o'ertlow her banks with great industries
and factory life till the rush OF city life
more and more wears and tears the
nerves to painful reaction. Oh, that
some word OF mine might win from the
unhealthy life of q city tenement,
where pale-faced children and pulseless
wives with sickly faces greet at night
the still paler disheartened toiler in the
hand-to-mouth struggle for bread and
rent, to come out to this land of sun
shine, of free land, of good natured
abundance, of health, of happiness, a
wealth more golden than the yellow
metal so abundantly scattered through
out the state, to an enjoyment of life
which seems to be the possession of
every one out here.
"Oregon is the largest of the Pacific
states, with only 100000 population
upon its 81 49, 200 acres, covering its
! 96,030 square miles Were it 80 thickly
populated as Rhode Island it could care
for its people better than New England,
though this would give to Oregon a
population Of 40,000,O00.
Sunshine and soil explain all. Rich,
fertile, mellow, wondrously productive
soil underneath in abundance for all;
while above, overhead, around about
you everywhere you wade through it,
breathing and drinking it in, wondrous
sunshine every day and all day long.
Life out here, so to speak, is in the open
outside OF doors. Few are hurried,
none have impressed me as worried. 1t
has been a very hot summer. The old
timers speak of it as "a scorcher," the
hottest they have known, and yet
horses and their colts choose out OF
preference to stand in the sun or lie
down in it when shade trees are not ten
feet away. This is true, though the
thermometer might register l2O degrees.
"The air is pure and dry. There is
/ oxygen in it. We have no dew. Under
board upon the ground you will find
it dry. From June to September it
does not rain east of the Cascade range,
which runs through the state from
north to south about 100 to 150 miles
| from the Pacific coast. AS Oregon Is
800 miles wide and 220 miles from north
to south you readily see the extent of
the rainless region. Yet that very
region without rain will produce two
and three crops of alfalfa"
The writer then proceeds to tell of the
large wheat yields Of Eastern Oregon,
and says he is on his way to Hood
River, the pomological paradise, at the
base Of Mount Hood, OF whose fruits
and beauties he will write later.