How Salmon Canning was Started in Oregon.

Evening Star, Issue 6802, 6 January 1886, Page 3

How Salmon Canning was Started in Oregon.

The salmon canning industry in Oregon iB attributed altogether to a suggestion of that queer genius, George Francis Train. Some years ago Train was to deliver a lecture in Portland, and, in the afternoon before he was to speak, engaged in salmon fishing. He met with great success, and was amazed at the quantity of the great fish in the river. He could talk of nothing else, and begged the Lecture Committee which had engaged him to allow a substitution of salmon for the subject of his address, in place of the one announced. This the Committee would not agree to, and Train began the speech announced in the advertisement. He got along very well for half an hour or so, and ( then the attraction of the theme uppermost in his mind proved too much for him. He left his original subject anil began to talk about salmon. Ho drew a salmon on the blackboard ; he declared that tho people before him were neglecting a mine of wealth close beside them ; he told them that they ought to begin salmon canning at once; that it was the coming great industry of the region; and that if they did not move quickly in the matter others would come in and seize the prize. He became eloquent, and the lecture ended in a grand word panorama, showing a salmon-colored future for the country. One or two men in tho audience, though dis» counting Train's prophecies, were impressed with his ideas, and resolved to carry them out in a practical way. They organised a company, and the salmon canning industry was begun.—' Chicago Tribune.'