_Dr._ Cost of ploughing, per acre $1 50
Cost of twice harrowing and sowing 1 00
Seed, 1-1/4 bushel 62
Thirteen sacks at 8 cents 1 04
Keeping up fences 10
Harvesting and hauling five miles to
depot, 17 cents per bushel 4 76
------
$9 02
_Cr._ By 28 bushels per acre at 50 cents $14 00
Cost of production 9 00
------
Profit $5 00
This product could not be expected on inferior lands, but with the
working farmer the cost of production is less. The yield of wheat on
the best lands of East Washington is large--almost beyond belief. Mr.
Houghton, attorney for the Spokane Falls and Palouse Railroad, told me
that he had known of 800 bushels of wheat being raised on ten acres;
that it was measured by a committee. Mr. Miles C. Moore has known 1,000
acres to average fifty bushels. A farmer (apparently honest) told me
that he had raised seventy-five bushels to the acre over his whole wheat
area. His crop was harvested by the acre, and the area measured by the
county surveyor. It was all sold, except seed. Thus he got both area and
product accurately. Many more instances were stated to me on good
authority. But there are different grades of fertility in these lands as
in other lands, and the amount of rainfall makes a difference also.
Wallula has but twelve inches of rain, and is unproductive. There must
be fifteen inches for wheat. Walla Walla has seventeen, and is
productive. Nearer to the Blue Mountains the rainfall is thirty to
thirty-five inches; here are the largest crops. Spokane Falls has
twenty-one inches. Yet where else on the earth can such crops be raised
even occasionally? I have been growing wheat for thirty-five years on
good land in the Valley of Virginia, and I never could reach thirty
bushels to the acre on a single field; and I do not believe that my
neighbors can do better than I do. We count twenty bushels an extra
crop.
[Sidenote: Also barley and oats.]
Besides wheat, these lands produce barley of superior quality, weighing
fifty pounds to the bushel, at the rate of fifty to sixty bushels per
acre, and oats weighing thirty-eight pounds to the bushel at the same
rate per acre. The weight of wheat is sixty pounds to the bushel. Barley
sells at 90 cents per 100 pounds, and is largely shipped East to be made
into beer.
The wheat usually grown is the Little Club, a short, strong white wheat;
but the Little Giant, Red Chaff and Chili Giant are productive. Spring
wheat is generally sown, but winter wheat is probably best. Blue stem
brings five cents extra in Portland. Freight, $5 a ton from Walla Walla
to Portland; thirty-three bushels counted a ton.
The wheat here has no enemies--no fly, nor rust, nor weeds, nor lodging.
[Sidenote: The soil a natural fertilizer.]
Much of the land has been cultivated for sixteen years without rest or
manure, and without diminution of crop; but the best farmers prefer to
rest and cultivate in alternate years. By the latter system the
ploughing is done in the off-year, and the land left a naked fallow.
This is thought to cleanse the land and renew its strength. And in some
cases in which lands have an excess of alkali, their productiveness
increases with cultivation. Sometimes the land contains as much as
eighteen pounds of potash to the cubic yard; which fact, by the way,
suggests the possibility of leaching the land to procure potash and
other alkalies.
[Sidenote: Quality of the wheat.]
The wheat of the Pacific coast has 4 per cent. less gluten in it than
the Eastern wheat, and this practically shuts it out of the Eastern
market. Nitrogen in Washington Territory wheat is 22 per cent. to 26 per
cent., whilst in the Eastern it is 34 per cent. to 40 per cent., and
inferior in quality. The true gluten is too brittle. It is better than
the California wheat, however, which has 4 per cent. to 6 per cent. less
nitrogenous matter, and the gluten inferior in quality. But the
California wheat makes a whiter flour than the Washington Territory
wheat, which is an advantage in selling. It should be remarked that the
term nitrogen, when applied technically to wheat, includes true gluten,
the phosphates, and all albuminoids, and excludes starch, sugar and
water, which latter comprise about seventy-two per cent. of the wheat.
Still, the Washington Territory wheat-grower has the advantage in
quantity per acre, which gives him a better profit than is now made in
California or any Eastern State. The price at Spokane Falls varies from
45 cents to 60 cents per bushel, which would give the farmer $10 to
$12.50 per acre for his crop, which is more than the average Eastern
farmer gets, whilst the cost of production ought to be, and ultimately
will be, less.
[Sidenote: The market in England, China, and other Asiatic ports.]
Flour is sent to England, by Cape Horn, at a cost of $1.30 per barrel
from Spokane Falls, and in Liverpool brings within 20 cents a barrel as
much as the Minneapolis flour, and it is also shipped to China and other
Asiatic ports, where it seems destined to supersede rice for bread.
China raises wheat, but not nearly enough for home consumption. The
Asiatic and Oceanic market will, ultimately, want all the wheat of our
Pacific States.
[Sidenote: Astonishing growth of vegetables.]
[Sidenote: Crops without rain.]
Besides the cereals, vegetables of nearly all kinds grow to great size
on this plateau. Those requiring a more uniformly warm temperature, such
as tomatoes, sweet potatoes, beans and peanuts, do best in the region
lying south of the Snake River, which is much less elevated than the
country north and east. And this is true also of peaches, grapes, and
other fruits requiring similar conditions. But as regards most
vegetables, especially roots, and also fruits, the plateau generally is
very productive. This is almost unaccountable in view of the fact that
after the first of June there is little or no rain until late in the
fall. Whilst rain seems to be necessary to start the small seeds, large
crops of potatoes are sometimes raised without a drop of rain. The
moisture must come partly from the soil, which has retained the winter
water, and partly from the deposition of moisture by the sea-air which
comes through the gap in the Cascade Mountains and penetrates the deep,
loose soil. Mr. Paul F. Mohr has measured a parsnip four feet long and
eight inches across the top. I saw potatoes in Colfax, thirty of which
filled a bushel measure.
As before intimated, I doubt whether the plateau can ever become a good
grass and hay country. For long forage, besides straw, the people must
depend upon the cereals mowed in the green state.
[Sidenote: West (not East) Washington is to be the great cattle
country.]
For this reason the plateau, as will also be the case with the great
plains eastward, can never carry the number of cattle that can be grazed
in a grass country. A farmer told me it required fifteen acres of bunch
grass to support one horse or steer, whilst in a grass country three
acres are ample, and on the best sods one acre is sufficient. Still, the
bunch grass is, and ought to be, utilized. And the areas of unimproved
land are so vast that the herds of cattle, horses and sheep which range
upon them altogether constitute a large item of wealth. And on these
treeless plains the effort seems to be to train the cattle and horses to
live like buffaloes and wild horses in both summer and winter.
[Sidenote: Tree-planting.]
The tree problem will, I think, work out satisfactorily, though, of
course, no such trees can ever be produced there as abound in West
Washington. Walla Walla is embowered in trees of artificial growth. The
Lombardy poplar seems to have been most successful. At various points I
saw plantations of box elder, and was told that this tree is easily
grown. The cottonwood is said to grow readily. Captain John McGowan
reports the successful culture of locust, walnut, maple and catalpa in
Lincoln County. He says, also, that the plum, peach, apricot, apple,
pear and grape succeed: and so with strawberries, raspberries and
blackberries. All these fruits are grown about Spokane Falls, but I
think that the grape and peach sometimes fail to mature. A good many
plantations of trees have been set out under the timber-culture act of
Congress, but it is thought that much imposition has been practised on
the Government by the failure to take proper care of the trees after
they were planted. The truth about the whole matter seems to be that,
with proper care, trees of most varieties may be grown on the plateau,
but that they will grow slowly and not attain large size. I might add
many details concerning the products of this wonderful country, but
these will suffice as illustrations.