Part 3 (1/2)

The business of catching, preserving and selling fish gives employment probably to more than 10,000 men in this state and adds probably four million dollars annually to its wealth production. The fishes include salmon, which is the chief commercial species, cod in many varieties, halibut, salmon trout, perch, sole, flounders, smelt, herring, sardines, oysters, clams, crabs and shrimp from its salt waters, and sturgeon, trout, perch, black ba.s.s, white fish and many others from the fresh water. Great quant.i.ties of salmon and halibut are s.h.i.+pped in ice-packed boxes, fresh from the waters, to all parts of the nation. Of these fish, many salmon, halibut and cod are caught in Alaskan waters and brought into this state to be cured and prepared for the market.

The salmon are chiefly packed in tin cans after being cooked; the cod are handled as are the eastern cod, dried and salted. The business of handling the smelts, herring, etc., is in its infancy, as is also that of the sh.e.l.lfish.

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The propagation of oysters, both native and eastern, is a.s.suming great importance in many places in the state. In Shoalwater bay, Willipa bay, Grays harbor, and many of the bays and inlets of Puget Sound, oysters are being successfully grown. In some instances oyster farms are paying as much as $1,000 per acre. The state has sold many thousand acres of submerged lands for this purpose. It has also reserved several thousand acres of natural oyster beds, from which the seed oysters are annually sold at a cheap price to the oyster farmers, who plant them upon their own lands and market them when full grown.

The native oysters are much smaller than the eastern oysters and of a distinct flavor, but command the same prices in the market.

AGRICULTURE.

Cereals.

The largest and most important industry in the state is without doubt the cultivation of the soil. The great variety of the soils and climatic conditions has made the state, in different parts, admirably adapted to a large variety of farm products. Vast fields of wheat cover a large proportion of the uplands of eastern Was.h.i.+ngton, the average yield of which is greater than that of any other state in the Union.

The diked lands of western Was.h.i.+ngton produce oats at the rate of 100 to 125 bushels per acre. In some counties in southeastern Was.h.i.+ngton barley is more profitable than any other cereal, on account of the large yield and superior quality.

Corn is successfully raised in some of the irrigated lands, but is not as profitable as some other crops and hence is not an important factor in Was.h.i.+ngton's grain supply. Rye, buckwheat, and flax, are successfully grown in many localities. In western Was.h.i.+ngton, particularly, peas form an important ration for stock food and are extensively raised for seed, excelling in quality the peas of most other states.

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Hops.

Hops are a large staple product in many counties of the state.

They are of excellent quality, and the yield is large and their cultivation generally profitable. The chief drawback is in the fluctuations of the market price.

Gra.s.s and Hay.

Gra.s.s here, as elsewhere, is very little talked about, although it is one of the large elements that make the profits of agriculture.

Saying nothing of the vast amount of gra.s.s consumed green, the state probably produces a million tons of hay annually, averaging $10 per ton in value. Western Was.h.i.+ngton is evergreen in pasturage as well as forests and no spot in the Union can excel it for annual gra.s.s production.

East of the mountains a very large acreage is in alfalfa, with a yield exceeding six tons per acre.

Potatoes.

On the alluvial soils of western Was.h.i.+ngton and the irrigated lands of the eastern valleys, potatoes yield exceedingly heavy crops of fine tubers, often from 400 to 600 bushels per acre. All other root crops are produced in abundance.

Beets.

Extensive experiments have proved that the sugar beet can be raised profitably in many counties and sugar is now on the markets of the state, made within its borders from home-grown beets.

Truck Gardening.

Garden stuff is supplied to all the large cities chiefly from surrounding lands in proper seasons, but much is imported from southern localities to supply the market out of season. The soils utilized for this purpose are the low alluvial valley lands and irrigated volcanic ash lands. The yield from both is astonis.h.i.+ng to people from the eastern prairie states, and even in western Was.h.i.+ngton, with its humid atmosphere and cool nights, tomatoes, squashes and sweet corn are being generously furnished the city markets. The warm irrigated lands of eastern [Page 24]

Was.h.i.+ngton produce abundant crops of melons, cuc.u.mbers, squashes and all other vegetables.

HORTICULTURE.

The conditions for successful fruit growing are abundant, and peculiarly adapted to produce excellence in quality and quant.i.ty in nearly all parts of the state, but some localities have better conditions for some particular fruits than others, e. g., western Was.h.i.+ngton excels in the raising of raspberries and other small fruits of that sort, its climate and soils being suited to the production of large berries and heavy yields.