Three fourths of the area of Tillamook is in timber, and half of this
is fir and hemlock. The forests of Umatilla are confined to the
mountains, where they are very dense, and to the belts along the
streams. Wasco has immense forests in the mountains, many of them as
yet inaccessible. The general result is, that Oregon has in all
15,407,528 acres of woodlands out of a total area of 60,975,360 acres.
The timber on the average is worth now about four dollars per thousand
cubic feet at the saw-mill in the log, and costs when sawed into inch
lumber about eight dollars the thousand feet of such lumber. The price
of the lumber to the consumer varies from nine to fourteen dollars per
thousand feet, according to the demand. Much of the fir and spruce
timber will cut into six or seven logs of sixteen feet in length, the
tree being six feet in diameter two feet from the ground.
From one cut out of a fallen fir on my own land we split one hundred
and thirty-two rails of fully four inches diameter, and from several
trees over six hundred rails each have been split.
A good deal of unauthorized timber-cutting goes on upon the Government
land not yet taken up. When the logger is honest, he buys the right to
cut from the owner of the land, paying "stumpage" of about fifty cents
a tree. I have known many acres to provide over fifty of these big
trees, thus returning a good price for the timber, and leaving rich and
partly cleared land for pasturing purposes in the hands of the owner.
One of the industries that needs to be established in many parts of the
State is tanning. Hides are plentiful, and of excellent quality; bark,
both of oak and of hemlock, is easily procurable, and the water-power
is abundant almost everywhere. At present the leather used is chiefly
imported from California; it has been hastily tanned, and is of poor
quality. The drawback to this business is that it absorbs capital
before it begins to yield profit; but, the machine once having begun to
revolve, the returns are steady, the risks few, the results permanent,
and the profits very considerable.
[Sidenote: _WOOLEN-MILLS._]
The woolen manufacture in Oregon has already taken good hold. Oregon
goods are well known in California, and in Philadelphia and New York
also. They received well-deserved praise at the Centennial Exhibition
of 1876. There are three woolen-factories in the State: one at Oregon
City, one at Brownsville, and one at Ashland, in the south of the
State. Their blankets and tweeds are admirable for thickness, solidity,
and softness of texture. The Oregon City mills employ a good many
Chinamen; they work well and economically. There is every probability
of a fourth factory being at once established in or near Albany; and
the more the better, considering the ample water-power, and the
abundance and excellence of fleeces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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