of two hundred pounds for the San Francisco market, from which they reaHzed
five hundred dollars. In 1854 they sent forty bushels down, making twenty-
five hundred dollars by the transaction. About the same time Mr. J. Strow-
bridge, now one of our most substantial citizens, began making collections and
consignments going about from orchard to orchard, and encouraging the farmers
to plant trees as rapidly as possible. His returns were large, and the encourage-
ment which he gave the farmers resulted in the extension of the early orchards.
In 1855 the export reached fifteen hundred boxes which sold at fifty cents to a
dollar a pound; in 1856 five thousand boxes, selling at twenty-five to fifty cents
a pound; in 1857, fifteen thousand boxes at fifteen to fifty cents; in 1858,
twenty-nine thousand, one hundred and ninety boxes, at seven cents to thirty-
five cents; in 1859, seventy-two thousand boxes at three cents to twenty-five
cents ; in i860, eighty-six thousand boxes, at three cents to nineteen cents. In
the winter of 1861, owing to the severity of the season, the orchards suffered a
great loss, many of them being completely ruined, so that the exports did not
for many years come up to their early productiveness. Even in 1862 we find
the exports only forty-two thousand and thirty-one boxes. Yet it is to be no-
ticed that after the discovery of gold and silver in eastern Oregon, and Idaho,
quite considerable shipments were made thither, of which no record is found ;
and it was becoming customary also to turn the product into dried fruit, which
subsequently exceeded in value the shipments of the green. Moreover, as prices
fell, the crops were not fully gathered and thousands of bushels were suffered
to rot under the trees, or were fed to the cattle and hogs.
About the year i860, and until 1865, there began a steady change in the character of exports. It was during these years that many of the people of western Oregon went mining in eastern Oregon or in Idaho, and as they re- turned, brought with them large quantities of gold dust; while bars of precious metals, which had been made in the mining camps or town of the upper Colum- bia, began to come down to Portland, and were shipped thence as treasure. These shipments soon vastly exceeded in value all other exports combined. Fre- quently a quarter of a million dollars, and occasionally twice or three times that sum, was sent away on a single steamer.
To begin now with a more exact account of our exports, those of 1863 are stated as follows: (It will not be supposed that these figures are exact, or wholly comprehensive, since many shipments were made of which no account was taken, and gold dust especially was carried ofT in the pouches of the miners, the quantity of which was altogether unknown.) Apples shipped aggregated forty-two thousand and thirty-one boxes; hides, two thousand, three hundred and twenty-four; wool, two thousand pounds, and fifty bales. There were but- ter, flour, packages of eggs, gunnies of bacon, and live stock in considerable numbers. Of treasure there were nearly three million dollars.
In 1864 the shipments of treasure rose to upwards of six million dollars, while other products swelled these export figures by about six hundred thousand dollars. Apples had come up to sixty-one thousand, six hundred and seventy- eight boxes. The shipment of flour was insignificant compared with that of later days, and that of wheat figured scarcely more, although we find that the bark Almatia took down a hundred tons on one of her trips. We also find a ship- ment of two hundred barrels of salmon. Although this fish was caught in con- siderable quantity and prepared by salting for domestic consumption, it figured comparatively nothing in those days, before the canneries. Of other exports, we find oats, potatoes, turpentine, hoop-poles, lumber, lard, oil, fish, beans, butter and bacon. The characteristics of these early shipments is that of a community of small farmers and housekeepers who, of afternoons, rainy days and long win- ter evenings, treasured up betimes the various odds and ends of their domestic and agricultural economies, rather for the sake of a little ready money when they went down to Portland, than as a regular established industry. Even the exports of wheat, flour, lumber and cattle seemed to be the picking up and
