The stage-coach route from Northern California to Oregon can be recommended to persons of means. Fare from Sacramento to Redding, the northernmost railroad station in California (180 miles), $8; from Redding to Portland, 480 miles (280 by stage, and 200 viâ Oregon and California Railroad), $40.

Emigrants from Europe can proceed to Portland, Oregon, either by steamer to New York, and thence viâ Isthmus of Panama; or by rail overland; or direct by English or German steamers to Colon, and thence to San Francisco and Portland, as already stated. The fare by the last-mentioned route is $92.50, gold.

Distances from New York to Portland, Oregon :

The following extracts from the Report of the Oregon State Commissioners of Immigration for 1876 show the facilities given by the Government of the State to arriving settlers and the present amount of immigration :—

“The Board has also at Astoria a paid distributor of cards or circulars from this Board, whose duty consists in delivering, on the arrival of each San Francisco steamer at Astoria, cards to immigrants on board, stating the objects of your Commission, and earnestly pressing such immigrants, on their arrival at Portland, to call at the immigration rooms there, and receive all necessary information and guidance to enable them to settle in the various portions of the State. The Board of Trade of Portland for upwards of a year tendered their rooms for the use of immigrants, rent free, and thereafter the Secretary (Mr. Reid) has, during the last six months, also

tendered to the Immigration Board, rent free, a reception room for the use of immigrants and Assistant Secretary. “Immigrants come daily to the rooms, where they are received by the Assistant Secretary and Secretary, and frequently by the Commissoners. All information is afforded them, and their various wants, so far as in the Board's power to supply, are attended to. Those who arrive in search of labour, receive whatever employment is open in the Board's Labour Record book. Direct orders for help are received, and those not so provided are directed to such localities as offer best inducements, and furnished with letters to enable them to secure employment. This Labour Record is of much importance to the Board, as it gives the immigrant courage, relieves distress, and prevents useless waste of his means while in search of employment. If taken more advantage of by the citizens of the State, much more good would follow to the immigrant and those employers of labour, farmers and such like. Immigrants in search of lands are handed lists of private lands for sale (which lists contain answers to the Board's advertisements in most of the Oregon newspapers for descriptions of lands for sale, for use of immigrants). The Board does not undertake the sale of such lands, however, leaving the owner and purchaser to complete whatever bargains they may mutually agree upon, and the immigrant to choose which of the farms he prefers. All information is given of State and Government lands, and where located, all over the State.

"If, as frequently happens, complaints are made by immigrants of being imposed on by sharpers, these complaints are investigated, and the proper authorities communicated with. Occasionally the Board has had in court to watch the interests of immigrants of whom an advantage was being taken by unprincipled persons.

"The Board some time ago concluded contracts with

one of the Atlantic steamship companies to carry emigrants to Oregon from Europe to New York at half the usual rates. This contract has been largely taken advantage of, and will not expire till the 5th of May, 1879. Arrangements were made, and are still in force, by which the Oregon Steamship Company carry all persons, certified by the Oregon Commissioners or one of the Foreign Commissioners of Emigration as bona fide emigrants to Portland, at modified rates of fare in the steerage, while the California Railroad Company agreed to carry all immigrants when they first arrive in Portland to their destination" up country" at half fares, at which rates, in 1875, they carried 3900 persons, and in 1876, to the 7th of September, 2100 persons. These benefits are largely taken advantage of, and persons lately from the East and Europe frequently, in consequence, receive from the Board such certificates to bring their friends here.

"Circulars were forwarded by one of the Multnomah County Granges to every Grange in Oregon, asking answers as to the advantages, resources, products, and prices in every locality, from which answers your Board selected one in every county and printed for each county the information so given by such County Grange. 50,000 circulars of this nature were printed for circulation.

as to

'It is difficult to procure an accurate statement of the arrivals in and departures from our State, so ascertain definitely our increase of population. But judging from the most reliable data we have obtained, we believe that during the last twenty months 11,213 immigrants have arrived in this State. The large majority of immigrants come from the Western and North-western States, a good number from Europe and New England States, and from New Zealand; from which latter colony your Board procured the names of 5000 persons, principally sheep and agricultural farmers, to

whom were mailed 5000 copies of a printed circular describing Eastern Oregon as a sheep country, and Western Oregon as a grain-growing section. Already many immigrants have arrived from New Zealand, and judging from the letters we receive and the opinions expressed by our Immigration Commissioners in that colony, a larger number will follow next year.”

GENERAL REMARKS.

In conclusion, I would say that no visitor to Oregon who had any opportunity of observing the condition of the people would fail to be impressed by their great general prosperity. The land yields such an abundant return for so little labour that those who hold land have little to do except at seed time and harvest. During the tour of our party in the country, which took place just before harvest was coming on, we met with a constant succession of parties, whole families or groups of young men who were out in waggons, camping out and enjoying themselves in the mountains or at the sea side, and taking a week or a fortnight's holiday. There were three hundred people taking sea air at Newport, on Yaquina Bay, during our visit to this port, and the keeper of the toll-gate on the Willamette Valley and Cascade Mountains military road told me that 400 waggons of pleasure parties passed the gate on tours into the mountains every year on this road alone. No one in Oregon seems to be hard worked, but everyone appears able to make a comfortable living with comparative ease.

No doubt this condition is to a great extent due to the fact that a large proportion of the Oregonians entered the country early and obtained large grants of the best land, and are now with their families reaping the reward of their foresight. Easily cultivatible land is not

now to be had on such easy terms as formerly; indeed, nothing astonishes the visitor so much as the extent to which all pieces of flat, prairie, and bottom land have been taken up, even in comparatively remote districts.

The Oregonians constantly ask visitors what they think of their wild country, but in fact nothing surprised me more in the country along the routes followed by our party than the comparative absence of wildness in Oregon, as contrasted with other new countries. The mark of the hand of man was to be seen everywhere, and in all our journeys there was no occasion for us to have slept without a roof over our heads, had we not preferred to sleep out. The Oregonians camp out on their pleasure excursions with their waggons apparently more as a matter of old habit, many having crossed the plains from the east in this fashion, than from necessity.

The land is no doubt almost everywhere farmed in a very superficial manner, or extremely badly, if the operations be judged by our English standard. Manuring is almost unheard of, and there is no rotation of crops. The utmost done for the land as a rule is to give it an occasional summer fallow to kill off the weeds and couch. The mildness of its winters renders Oregon preferable to the settler to the Eastern States on the same latitude, and we were astonished at the number of settlers which we met with in the State who had moved west, driven off the eastern plains by the cold winters We could not fail to be struck with the superiority of Oregon over California in possessing a constant rainfall, seeing that California was suffering at the time of our visit from a drought of more than a year's duration, so that the cornlands there in many places looked like a parched and barren desert. Numbers of emigrants were seen moving up along the road from the south to Oregon in search of rain.