A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 Part 5

(2) A logging Railroad, Jefferson County. (3) Prize Products, Jefferson County.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate No. 29.--JEFFERSON COUNTY RURAL VIEWS. Field of Oats and Vetch Yielding 5 Tons Per Acre. Herd of High-Grade Holstein Dairy County.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate No. 30.--View of Waterfront, Port Townsend, Jefferson County.]

HIGHER INSt.i.tUTIONS.

The University of Was.h.i.+ngton occupies a campus of 350 acres, located entirely within the limits of the city of Seattle.

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The buildings of the university consist of the administration building, science hall, chemistry building, engineering building, power house, dormitories for men and women, and other smaller buildings. In addition to the foregoing, the university will come into the possession of a number of commodious structures at the conclusion of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition. For the current year, the enrollment of students at the university is 1,838. The faculty consists of 115 members and for the ensuing biennial period the legislature appropriated the sum of $673,000 for the support of the inst.i.tution.

The State College of Was.h.i.+ngton is located at Pullman, in Whitman county. This inst.i.tution emphasizes technical and scientific education and in its agricultural departments has accomplished remarkable results.

It is annually giving the state a number of highly trained experts in modern agricultural science, and the farming interests of the state have been greatly a.s.sisted by the work of the college. Instruction is given in civil engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, geology, botany, chemistry, zoology, economic science and history, modern languages, domestic economy, besides the practical operation of a dairy farm and other branches of agricultural industry. The inst.i.tution, in addition to its land endowment, receives annual a.s.sistance from the federal government and a biennial appropriation from the state legislature.

The state also maintains three normal schools, located respectively in the cities of Bellingham, Ellensburg and Cheney. These inst.i.tutions have a combined attendance of about 850 and are the recruiting ground for securing instructors in the public schools.

At Vancouver is the State School for the Deaf and Blind. The defective youth of the state are cared for in a well equipped inst.i.tution located at Medical Lake, in Spokane county, and at Chehalis is the state training school for incorrigibles.

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LOGGED-OFF LANDS.

The problem of making a home and providing a competency for old age upon the lands in western Was.h.i.+ngton is somewhat different and more difficult than doing the same upon the prairie lands of the east. As they come to the hands of the would-be tiller of the soil, they present a forbidding and disagreeable aspect. The loggers have left them with considerable standing timber, with the tops of the giants of the forests lying where they fell, scattered over the land and covering it with an almost impenetrable ma.s.s of great limbs and brush and dead logs. If seen in the summer, there is added the view of a ma.s.s of green vegetation, rank and to a large extent covering up the ma.s.s of dead stuff left by the loggers with the huge stumps sticking up through it all, mute monuments of the lost wealth of the forest. In some instances this is somewhat relieved by the fact that, either by accident or design, the fire has been there and swept through it all, leaving nothing but blackened and smouldering emblems of its prior greatness. In this case, however, only the lighter part of the refuse has been destroyed. The great stumps of fir and cedar are there still, blackened and perhaps with their dead hearts burned out. Great and small decaying logs are there, some too wet to burn, some with the bark alone burned off, and some with the dead centers burned out, scattered about or piled in crisscross ma.s.ses as they had fallen during the ages of the forest's growth. In either case it looks different from the smooth surface of the sagebrush plains about to be converted into irrigated farms or the clean face of the prairie lands covered with gra.s.s and ready and longing for the plow. But with all their forbidding aspects, black with a portentous cloud of hard labor and long waiting, their known hidden wealth lures on the hardy pioneer to the task. He throws off his coat, rolls up his sleeves, gathers together his tools, and with the indomitable courage of the Anglo-Saxon [Page 35]

tackles the problem, works and fights and rests by turns till within a few years he finds himself triumphant. Eventually, beneath his own orchard trees laden with fruit, and in the comfort and delight of his big home fireplace, he contemplates the rewards of his struggle, as he sees his cows complacently chewing their cuds in his green pastures and listens to the neigh of his fat horses, and at his table, laden with all the bounty of his rich lands, thanks his Maker for the successful completion of a hard struggle and the enjoyment it has brought to him and his family.

MODERN METHODS.

Having thus presented the picture in perspective, we will now work out some of the details which help to rob it of its difficulty and add to its attractiveness. If the lands have not been burned off, and in many instances where this has been done, the rancher will find a lot of cedar logs, perhaps partially burned, and possibly long black stubs that it will be wise to save. Cut into proper lengths and put into piles for preservation, they will make his raw material for fencing, barns, etc. The cedar is straight-grained, splits easy, and true, and to the rancher is very valuable, taking the place of sawed lumber for a great many farm purposes. Having carefully saved the cedar, the rancher will fire his clearing, thus getting rid of a large share of the logger's waste with practically no labor. To the task of disposing of the remaining logs and stumps he will bring modern tools and methods into action. The axe and shovel and hand lever have given place to gunpowder, the donkey engine, derrick and winch. Stump powder puts all the big stumps into pieces easily. The modern stump-puller lifts out the smaller stumps with ease. The donkey engine and derrick pull together and pile the stumps and logs into great heaps, and once more the friendly fire helps out; and while the dusky woodlands are lighted up with pa.s.sing glory the rancher sleeps to wake up and find his fields almost ready for his plow, nor has the task had half the hard labor nor consumed half the time that years ago would have been expended in clearing the same amount of oak and maple and hickory land in the valley [Page 36]

of the Mississippi. It should be said, however, that what is gained in time and saved in labor costs money. The expense of clearing the logged-off land by these modern methods and tools will run from $40 to $150 per acre, dependent upon various conditions, number and size of stumps, etc.

There are in western Was.h.i.+ngton thousands of acres which are being pastured and tilled, from which the large stumps have not been removed. In these instances the same methods can be used, handling all the small logs and stumps and litter, and after the first burning, carefully repiling and burning the refuse and then seeding to gra.s.s.

In the ashes and loose soil, gra.s.s seed readily starts, and a single season will suffice to provide fairly good pasturage, which will annually grow better.

COST OF LABOR AND MATERIAL.

The following table, taken from the report of a government inspector, will give an idea of the cost of the different materials and labor used in clearing logged-off land:

Cost of removing stumps from 1 foot to 4 feet in diameter from 120 acres of land in 1907:

========================================================================== Labor.

MONTH. Powder, Fuse, Caps, Stumps, -------------------- lbs. ft. No. No. Hours. Dollars.

----------------- -------- -------- ------- --------- -------- ----------- June 13,700 10,100 2,400 2,135 2,380 $650.00 July 1,750 2,050 400 239 260 87.00 August 2,750 2,700 700 445 324 114.90 September 1,950 2,160 500 383 324 126.37 October 1,250 1,000 300 237 198 77.53 November 2,350 3,100 800 378 283 114.97 -------- -------- ------- --------- -------- ----------- Total 23,750 21,100 5,100 3,818 3,709 $1,170.77 Av. pr. Stump 6.22 5.52 1.33 0.987 0.3006 Av. Cost, cents 19.76 2.37 .87 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

The average cost of the removal of each stump is shown below:

_Cents._ Powder 49.76 Fuse 2.37 Caps .87 Labor 30.66 ----- Total 83.06

The average cost of the materials used was as follows: Powder, per pound, 8 cents; fuse, per 100 feet, 43 cents; caps, per 100, 65 cents.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate No. 31.--View of Second Avenue, Seattle, During Parade of Marines from Atlantic Fleet, May 26, 1908.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Plate No. 32.--A Corner of the Seattle Public Market.

Truck Gardeners Find Ready Sale for Their Wares Here the Year Round.]

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There are probably two and one-third million acres of logged-off lands in the state, of which only half a million are under tillage or pasturage. The same report shows the distribution of these lands as follows:

=========================================================================== Acreage Acreage Acreage in Total Per cent.

COUNTY. merchantable logged cultivation. acreage. suitable for timber. off. agriculture.

----------- ------------ ----------- ------------ ----------- ------------- Chehalis 583,200 112,748 11,216 807,432 90 Clallam 296,611 195,933 11,784 504,329 75 Clarke 190,000 108,661 51,570 350,231 Cowlitz 500,000 25,000 20,000 704,000 75 Island 8,013 99,866 9,317 117,196 75 Jefferson 186,647 59,427 4,657 254,385 50 King 640,000 110,000 74,857 1,243,000 Kitsap 45,429 171,364 7,978 224,771 Lewis 543,995 160,425 47,059 884,050 65 Mason 240,211 150,430 7,540 398,181 Pacific 367,827 62,720 23,042 453,139 Pierce 413,044 150,000 27,915 658,052 75 San Juan 10,000 80,000 4,000 95,684 Skagit 306,759 149,923 45,605 502,287 25 Snohomish 258,005 270,422 20,908 558,336 Thurston 291,200 120,000 13,680 428,005 Wahkiak.u.m 74,564 67,337 3,642 145,544 50 Whatcom 78,405 258,302 35,059 371,766 ----------- ------------ ----------- ------------ ----------- ------------- Total 5,033,911 2,352,109 428,829 8,700,388 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a great many acres of these lands that can be slicked up and burned over and prepared for seeding, not disturbing the stumps, at an expense of about $10 per acre. Thus treated, good pasturage can be secured cheaply. In time some of the stumps will rot out and be easily removed. When the stumps are not too thick, the lands can be successfully prepared and planted to orchards without removing the stumps, and their unsightly appearance can be turned into a thing of beauty and great profit by planting evergreen blackberries and loganberries about them, using the stumps for trellises. These berries in the climate of western Was.h.i.+ngton are wonderfully prolific and find a greedy market.

COMPENSATIONS.

There are several facts about making farms out of logged-off lands which should not be lost sight of, because they largely compensate for the labor spent in the undertaking. One of these is that the problem of fuel is solved for a lifetime and for the coming generation.

Five acres can be left untouched as a reserve and in a remarkably few years it will re-forest itself.

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The growth of trees under the humid atmosphere of western Was.h.i.+ngton is astonis.h.i.+ng, and a very few years will suffice to provide one with a wood lot to last a generation. Meanwhile some of the fir logs and alder and maple trees will be preserved from the fire and piled up to provide fuel for the years until the wood lot furnishes a fresh green supply.

Then, too, as has already been suggested, the fence question, no small item in a prairie country, is satisfactorily answered with no expenditure but for labor. The cedar logs, splitting with ease, can be turned into rails or boards or posts--preferably the former--and the rails put on top of each other between two posts fastened together at the top make as good a hog-tight and cattle-proof fence as can be desired, and these rails will last in the fence for a century.

For the house, doubtless more satisfaction can be had by patronizing the nearest saw-mill, although many houses made out of split cedar timbers and boards are in the state, proofs at once of the usefulness of this timber and the hardihood and ingenuity of the rancher.

But for the barn and stable, pig-stye, hennery, chicken-coop and fruit boxes, and a great many other things, the rancher patronizes his reserve log pile instead of the lumber yard, and saves time and labor in so doing. Another fact which compensates the rancher in western Was.h.i.+ngton in the struggle for a home which will provide a safe and generous support in his old age is that during all the labor and waiting he is enjoying a delightful climate, in which no blizzard drives him from his work. No cyclone endangers his life and fortune. No snakes lurk in the underbrush. No clouds of dust blind his eyes. No sultry summer suns make him gasp for breath, and no intense cold freezes his face or feet. He can work if he wishes as many days as there are in the year, and know that every stroke of his axe or mattock is a part of his capital safely invested that will pay back an annual dividend for a lifetime. No soil will respond to his energy more quickly or more generously.

There is one more possible compensation. Fir logs and stumps and roots and bark are all full of pitch. Factories are now in operation that are turning this wood into charcoal and [Page 39]

saving and refining all the by-products, particularly turpentine, wood alcohol, pitch and tar. These factories are successful and paying dividends, but are on a large scale and permanently located.

It is probable that some genius will soon evolve a movable plant, capable of serving the same purpose, which can go from one ranch to another. When this is done, it will be found that the refuse left by the logger is worth several times more than the cost of getting it off the land with powder and fire, and, instead of being a burden upon the land of $100 per acre, will become a matter of merchandise to be sold for much more and removed from the land with no expense to the owner.

As a final word, it should be remembered that, after these lands are put under good tillage, every acre can be made to return more than the cost of clearing annually. Western Was.h.i.+ngton has never been able to produce enough to feed its wonderfully increasing population. Meats, vegetables, fruits, poultry, eggs, etc., are all constantly coming in from outside to supply the markets. This condition keeps prices high. It has been so for twenty years, and will be for twenty years to come. From $100 to $500 per acre per year can be had from fruits and vegetables. The same can be realized from poultry, nor will the dairy fall far behind when the scrub cow is abandoned and a choice thoroughbred animal takes its place and the soil is intensely tilled and fertilized.

The logged-off lands when first looked at are black and big labor and difficulties. When the problem is intelligently understood--undertaken with comprehension and some capital and plenty of grit--the solution is easy and the rewards ample and gratifying.

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IRRIGATION IN WAs.h.i.+NGTON.

The lands which require irrigation in the state are chiefly the lower lands in the valleys of the rivers east of the Cascade mountains.

The winds from the Pacific, though heavily laden with moisture, are forced to surrender the greater portion to western Was.h.i.+ngton, as they meet the cold heights of the mountain ranges. The mountains themselves receive a very heavy fall of snow in winter, which fills the lakes and sources of the rivers on the eastern side, providing a large amount of water available for irrigation purposes, for lands not too far distant. Within fifty miles from the mountain peaks there is a drop of about 4,000 feet. The sides of the valleys in the main are gradual slopes. These conditions make irrigation very feasible. Its wonderful results have been seen and the process of irrigation has found a wide field within the past few years.