the same. Its manufacturing establishments are fifteen saw-mills, ten flouring-mills, one pork and beef-packing establishment, one woolen-factory, two carding-machines, one oil-mill, two tanneries, three machine-shops, one foundry, three sash and door factories, and three cabinet-shops.
Probably not more than one-eighth of the land in Marion County was ever broken by the plow. A considerable portion of it belongs to the School-fund, and may still be purchased for two dollars an acre. The prices of farming lands range from three to twenty dollars; and in the vicinity of Salem they command twenty to fifty. The Marion County assessment—indebtedness off—is $3,975,199, an increase of $438,864 over last year. The whole tax in the county this year, including the four-mill tax for building a Court House, is seventeen and a half mills.
Taking Marion as a specimen county, as from its diversity of soil we might, we find, first, that the soil of the river-bottoms is composed of sand, vegetable mold, and various decomposed earths; a new deposit being made, annually, by the winter overflow. These alluvial bottoms are exceedingly fertile, and adapted to corn, tobacco, potatoes, and vegetables of all kinds. Second, the soil of the prairies consists of a mixture of sand loam and alluvial deposit, with a base of clay. It is particularly adapted to the production of all kinds of grain, and tame grasses; and almost equally to roots, vegetables, and fruit. This soil is mellow, and not much affected by drought. Third, the hill land is of a red color, much impregnated with iron, in the form of a black sand, such as is found in the gold placers of Southern Oregon and California. There is also alluvium mixed with this earth, being the wash of the
