CHAPTER XVII.
COUNTIES COMPARED.
The agricultural capacity of every part of Oregon is so much greater than its present productiveness, that, to state the latter, would only be to disparage the former. It has been estimated that Yamhill County might produce 6,000,000 bushels of wheat, annually; whereas, it actually does produce perhaps one-ninth of that amount. But the time has not yet quite arrived when both the motive and the ability exist for Oregon farmers to do their best.
Yamhill County has produced some of the best stock ever exported from Oregon—the market for it generally being San Francisco. A good deal of stock is annually driven to the Sound in Washington Territory, where it either finds a market, or is exported by water to Vancouver's Island. It used to be that cattle and sheep were raised in the Wallamet Valley for the supply of the mining districts in Eastern Oregon and Idaho, and were shipped up the Columbia River to the Dalles, and thence driven to their destinations. However, since the settlement of the valleys of Eastern Oregon and Idaho, and the fertile Territory of Montana, they have been able, with the help of Utah, to furnish beef and mutton to the miners. Western Oregon still finds a market east of the mountains, but not to so great an extent as formerly.
Yamhill is so peculiar a name, that, to most persons,
