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Since 1888 the export of flour has been a very large business. Inaugtirated by WilHam Dunbar, the trade was quickly taken up and enormously expanded by Mr. T. B. Wilcox. Going into the business on the sole capital of his brains and energy in 1885, he has reduced the manufacture of flour in Oregon to an exact science, and has, and is making more flour than any other concern on the Pacific coast. When Mr. Wilcox went into the flour manufacture there was but little more than twelve million bushels of wheat annually produced in the state, and probably half as much more in Washington. But the stimulus which his operations gave to wheat raising, by increasing the price of wheat, by turning it into flour and feeding the oflFal to live stock, shipping the flour to foreign countries, very greatly influenced the production of wheat in both Oregon and Washington, so that now the annual output of wheat and flour from Portland has been raised to about thirty million bushels ; and the price this year of 1910, paid to the farmer, at this writing, is from 85 to 95 cents per bushel, according to quality.
CATTLE AND DAIRYING.
The first cattle brought to Oregon were imported by the Hudson's Bay Com- pany in 1835. Those were followed by cattle driven in from California in 1837. And one of the first propositions of the pioneer missionary, Jason Lee, v/as to bring in more and better cattle. The Spanish cattle from California were not much better than wild cattle from South America. Jason Lee and Ewing Young organized a cattle company and a drove of six hundred head were purchased in southern California and driven north through the Sacramento, Rogue River and Umpqua valleys to the Willamette valley. These cattle cost three dollars a head in California. They were the long horned Mexican breed, and their horns would be worth nearly three dollars a head now. Their only value was for beef and breeding purposes — crossing them with improved breeds. But now, even for beef, they would be worth forty dollars a head — such is the change in the times. But these Mexican bred cattle rapidly increased on the rich Willamette grass ; and when gold was discovered in CaHfornia twelve years afterward, Oregon had lots of beef to sell and did sell it to the miners in northern California. The first effort of any importance to improve the breeds of cattle in Oregon was made by S. G. Reed, commencing with the year 1872. In that year Mr. Reed purchased a fine tract of land at Reedville, in Washington County, and another very much larger at Broadmeads in Yamhill County, and stocked both places with the best beef and dairy cattle he could find in the eastern states or Scotland. Short horns, Ayreshires and Jerseys were purchased without regard to price, and im- ported by transcontinental railroad, together with men skilled in the breeding of these breeds of cattle. Reed's cattle made a great sensation at all the agri- cultural fairs and stock shows, and excited so much interest and rivalry that many importations of thoroughbred cattle were made by other farmers.
Mr. Reed only planted the seed and showed Oregon farmers the possibili- ties of the business. And notwithstanding such liberal outlays of cash for the finest beef and dairy cattle to be had in the world, the dairy industry made slow progress until the farmers were forced to see that they had cropped their land in wheat so long that there was but little profit in raising wheat at 60 or 70 cents a bushel.
Then Mr. William Schulmerick, and a lot of progressive farmers in Wash- ington county, organized a creamery association to make the butter of the whole neighborhood at one place, and with one outfit of machinery by an experienced butter maker. A year's trial proved that there was more money in making but- ter and cheese than in raising wheat. And so the news spread. Tillamook County took the idea up early because that country could not raise and ship grain at a profit, and because it had the best soil and climate in the world for butter and cheese. And so the dairying business spread all over the Willamette valley.
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