THE NEW EMPIRE OF EASTERN WASHINGTON.
The recent extensions of the Union Pacific System have aided in the most important way the development of the richest and most fertile lands of Eastern Washington. The great plains of the Upper Columbia, stretching from the river away to the far north, are incomparably rich, the soil of great depth and wondrous fertility, rainless harvests, and a luxuriance of farm and garden produce which is almost tropical in its wealth. This favored region has been for years known as the
PALOUSE COUNTRY,
and is reached from Portland via Pendleton, on the main line of the Union Pacific Ry. From Pendleton to Spokane Falls on the north the soil is rich beyond belief; a black, loamy deposit so deep that it seems well-nigh inexhaustible. This heavy soil predominates in the valleys, and while the uplands are not so rich, still immense crops of wheat are raised. For hundreds of miles on this new division of the Union Pacific the country is a perfect garden land of wheat and fruit, and these farms are often of mammoth proportions. Here are 13,000,000 acres of land possessing all the requirements and advantages of climate and soil for the making of one vast wheat-field. The enormous yield of 7,000,000 bushels of wheat has been harvested in one valley.
The authentic figures of the crop yield in this splendid country seem almost incredible. Fifty thousand bushels of wheat have been raised on 1,000 acres of land. As low as 35 bushels and as high as 74¼ bushels of wheat to the acre have been harvested in this section. The average covered seems to be from 47 to 55 bushels per acre, and no fertilizers of any sort being required. The berry in its full maturity is very solid, weighing from 65 to 69 pounds per bushel, this being from five to nine pounds over standard weight. While wheat is the staple product, oats are also grown, the yield being very heavy. Rye, barley, and flax are also successfully cultivated. Clover, bunch-grass, and alfalfa grow finely.
In the growing of fruits and vegetables this grand empire of Eastern Washington is quite unsurpassed. At one of the recent agricultural fairs a farmer exhibited 109 varieties of fruits, vegetables, and cereals. These included the best qualities of Yellow Nansemond sweet potatoes, mammoth melons of all varieties, eggplant, sorghum and syrup cane, broom-corn, tobacco, grapes, cotton, peanuts, and many other things, some of which do not attain to so high a degree of excellence elsewhere farther north than the Carolinas. Peaches, apples, and prunes of superior quality delighted the eye. Peaches had been marketed continuously, from, the same orchards, from the 15th of July to the 15th of October. There were hanging in the pavilion diplomas awarded at the New Orleans Exposition to citizens in this valley for exhibits of the best qualities and greatest varieties of corn, wheat, oats, barley, and hops.
The advantage to the farmer of rainless harvesting months is obvious. The wheat is all harvested by headers, leaving the straw on the ground for its enrichment. Thus binding, hauling, and sacking are largely dispensed with. The grain, when threshed, is piled on the ground in jute sacks, saving the expense of granaries and hauling to and from them. These jute sacks cost for each bushel of grain about 3 cents, which is far less than farmers elsewhere are subjected to in hauling their grain to and from granaries and through a system of elevators until it reaches shipboard.
Here, as well as in Western Washington, most vegetables grow to an enormous size, and are of superior quality when compared with the same varieties grown in the East. Those kinds that require much heat, as melons, tobacco, peppers, egg-plants, etc., grow to great perfection. The root crops—beets, carrots, parsnips, potatoes, turnips, etc.—yield prodigiously on the fertile bottom-land soils, without much care besides ordinary cultivation. The table beet soon gets too large for the dinner-pot. It is nothing unusual for a garden beet to weigh ten pounds, and they often grow to eighteen or twenty pounds' weight. Mangel wurzel, the stock beet, sometimes grows to forty and fifty pounds' weight, if given room and proper cultivation. They may easily be made to produce twenty-five tons per acre on good soil. All other vegetables, such as parsnips, carrots, peas, beans, tomatoes, onions, cabbages, celery, and cauliflower, are perfectly at home on every farm of Eastern Washington. Market gardening is becoming quite an important pursuit, and holds out particularly high inducements to the farmer, because of the superb market now afforded by the non-producing mineral and timber regions, easily accessible in this and adjacent Territories.
There are over 2,000 square miles of arable land in this magnificent region, and there has never been a crop failure since its settlement. Outside of Government lands prices range at from $4 to $10 per acre for unimproved, and from $12 to $20 for improved lands.
