COUNTIES: POPULATION, ETC.

269

eral of my recently arrived English friends prefer the undulating land and gentle slopes of this side of the valley to any other part of Oregon, and have proved their preference by their actions. Land in these counties varies from ten to twenty-five dollars an acre in price.

I think I will close this somewhat tedious chapter by setting out the counties of Oregon, their population, and the statement of their taxable property, furnished by the Secretary of State:

The proportion of taxable property held by each man, woman, and child in Oregon is therefore $277.47.

The population of the valley counties, properly so called, is 83,549-this leaves Portland and Multnomah County entirely out. The taxable property of these

valley counties is $23,735,262.

The population of the whole of Eastern Oregon east of the Cascades is but 39,099. The value of its taxable property is only $8,958,724.

The population of that part of Eastern and Northeastern Oregon which is in any sense tributary to the Columbia or Snake Rivers is 28,180. The value of their taxable property is $6,256,547.

The average taxable property of the population of the valley counties is $282.68; that of the population of Eastern Oregon, $228.96.

These figures will be seen to have an important bearing on the subject of the next chapter.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The transportation question-Its importance-Present legal positionOregon Railway and Navigation Committee's general report-That company-Its ocean-going steamers-Their traffic and earnings-Its river-boats-Their traffic and earnings-Its railroads in existenceTheir traffic and earnings-Its new railroads in construction and in prospect-Their probable influence-The Northern Pacific-Terminus on Puget Sound-Its prospects-The East and West Side Railroads -"Bearing" "traffic and earnings-How to get "control"-Lands owned by the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company-Monopoly -How threatened-The narrow-gauge railroads-Their terminus and working-Efforts to consolidate monopoly-The "blind pool "-Resistance-The Oregon Pacific-Its causes, possessions, and prospects -Land grant and its enemies-The traffic of the valley-Yaquina Bay-Its improvement-The farmers take it in hand-Contrast and comparisons-The two presidents-Probable effects of competition— Tactics in opposition-The Yaquina improvements-Description of works-The prospects for competition and the farmers' gains.

FROM all that has gone before, the deduction is plain that on the solution of the transportation question in the interests of the fixed and industrious population of the State depends absolutely the growth and prosperity of Oregon. Nature has done her part.

The words of Messrs. George M. Pullman, of Chicago, and William Endicott, Jr., of Boston, in their report of August 1, 1880, to the stockholders of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, will be echoed by every man who is now or has been in Oregon with eyes to see. They wrote as follows: