Two Years in Oregon

-?What will he do with it?-?Choice of homestead-?Fencing wild land-?Its method and cost-?Splitting cedar boards and shingles-? House-building-?The Ch

between two great divisions of this county, we entered a valley entirely shut in. At the southeastern end, where we entered it, it was a narrow gorge, down which a quick stream hurried, with many a twist and turn, and over many a rocky ledge. The hill-sides above were thick with fern and berry-bearing bushes, and the black trunks of the burned timber stood as records of the great fire; but the stream ran through a leafy wilderness, where maple, alder, and cherry shut in the trail, and the maiden-hair

where we crossed again and again the creek dividing the valley down its entire length, all charmed me; the steep yet rounded outlines of the hil

in a road out of the main Yaquina road, whi

in flood, and waded across waist-deep. But no road on the other side; only a dark trail leading into thick brush. Presently it was pitch-dark, and the surveyor confessed he did not know where he was; that this was certainly not the Yaquina, and apparently there was no road. The rain still fell heavily, and saturated them and their packs. Then one of the horses, which they were leading along, s

ittle farther, the leader identified the Rock Creek Valley, and pointed out t

nds to keep on trying for a road through that till we got it, or were satisfied it was impossible. Perseverance answered, and we struck a trail up the course of the Yaquina River nearly to its source,

dug holes, and set up the frame of your hut; build a recess five feet wide and two feet deep at one end for a chimney; board the whole in, and double the boarding on the roof; line the inside of the chimney with damp earth for about two feet up, and then carry that up above the roof of your house also by boards; hang a door on a couple of wooden hinges made by choosing strong forked pieces of crab-apple which will not split; beat down

elow. The next question was the hard one, What will he do with it? The wilderness was before us; how were we to civilize it? Gazing down into the valley, with here a ferny slope, there a copse filling acres of bottom, then a deep ca?on with green trees, ther

And a rising ground, some hundred yards from the river, along one side of which ran a clear little stream at

ut in pieces and split for burning. Next came the fencing. It takes five thousand rails, ten feet long and five or six inches thick, to make a mile of snake-fence. A man can split from one to two hundred rails a day, according to the soundness and straightness of grain of the timber; and good hands will contract to saw the logs, split the rails, and keep themselves the while, for abo

hingles, and a contract at two and a half dollars a thousand set two excellent workmen going, and first fifty thousand and then twenty thousand more were made on the spot. Then the house-building and barn-raising went on merrily, though with constant grumbling at the expense of time in preparing the rough materials, instead of having ready-sawed lu

re well off for sense. The wagon was heavily laden with stores, and the mules were struggling up a muddy hill. "Get out, John, and walk," said the Scotch driver, and John had to obey. Long

, with the black kettle depending. For the children it was a continuous picnic; two or three times a day they were bathing in the river; and

able assurance that the work once done was done for good; that is, tha

sixty feet high, were lighted by boring two auger-holes so as to meet a couple of feet deep inside the tree; the fire would lay hold of the entire mass, and cataracts of sparks burst out in unexpected pl

baskets laden with ripe blackberries, and the crimson thimble-berries, and yellow salmon-berries, and scarlet huckleb

es were all in use, and candlesticks, and salt-cellars, and othe

efore the winter set in. They were quick to learn, and, after a time or two, a short excursion down the valley, with a pocketful of salt, and the long-drawn cry of "Suck

r. This was shut off from the large corral by a fallen log five feet thick, which looked high enough to keep the idea of scaling it out of any cow's mind. But I saw her make

e nothing but fern and thimble-berry bushes, the cows grew fat and yielded abundance of milk, and that v

the house, of about three acres, is cleared, plowed, and now being sowed down in clover. Another clearing, of about two acres, on old beaver-dam land by the river, is planted in cabbages in part, and the rest will be in carrots and beets. About two hundred acres are fenced in for sheep, and about ninety head are on it, helping out the brush-cutting by eating the shoots. About fifteen hundred acres of hill-land were burned and sowed down in mesquit-grass, which is now, at one year old, about three inches high. Some forty head of cattle, chiefly cows and calves, and a few two-year-olds, are in the valley and all doing well; the steers were sold fa