The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1881-04-28
VANCOUVER INDEPENDENT.
THURSDAY, APRIL IS. 1881.

It is not very often that we allude
to the weather. but as this subject is
always in order, and we have seen so
many dispatches from various parts of
the country and especially from Wis
consin, Iowa and Minnesota, where
they have had lots of it, we believe
that the weather is still fashionable
topic, and that extended allusion to it
will not be considered out of place for
the information of our readers both in
the west and the east. The people on
this coast are still greatly interested
in the weather, and we naturally pre-
sumo that it is the same in other parts
of the country. To begin with, we en-
ter upon the subject of the weather
with due humility, feeling how very
inferior this coast is to the sections of
the country named above where they
get so much more weather than we do.
There the snow has been from four to
six feet deep on the level, and it is
stated that about twelve feet fell dur
ing the whole winter, whereas here we
did not have to exceed one foot in the
same time, nor more than eight inches
at one fall, which remained on the
ground only a few days. To us, who
have spent the winter at Vancouver,
the accounts of the drifts and snow
blockades, the tales of the storms and
81, Il Il h N
states, appear as strange as oriental
tales. We could quote hundreds of
cases of terrible sufferings from deep
SHOWS and want of fuel in those Sec
tions, but will only mention the case
of Appleton, Swift county, Minnesota,
where the people were entirely out of
wood and coal, as described in the
Minneapolis Tribune two months and
half ago. The article, after stating
that the people had used for fuel their
hay and unthreshed grain as well as
Their furniture and the insides of their
houses, concludes by saying, "the des-
titution is something horrible to con-
template, even in the villages, and is
much worse in the claim shanties on
the frontier. 1t is surprising what
success in economizing fuel the set
tiers have, however, Who would
live in such a climate, miles and miles
from timber, when knowing of a bet
ter country? Who can fail to perceive
how much more favored are Western
Washington and Oregon? Here the
country has been clothed with mass
of flowers and verdure for weeks, and
the winter was so mild that potatoes
and root crops wintered in the ground.
We have in our office fresh sample
of winter wheat measuring fourf feet in
height when pulled on the 22nd April.
Door-yards and lawns have already
been moved, and in places on the bot
toms grass is tall enough for hay. The
gardens are now yielding fresh veget-
ables, some cherries are half grown
and the fruit trees have some time ago
shed their blossoms. Peonies and Ii
laes, the tulips and the clematis, are
in their glory, and rose-buds ready to
open, while better still the flowers on
this coast remain in bloom twice as
long as in the middle states, the grow
ing season being also three months
longer here. The spring crops are all
in and nearly all are up and growing.
In gardens potatoes are foot high,
and other things doing as well. We
could multiply details indefinitely,
but this is enough to show that WASH
ington and Oregon are ahead of any
part of the Mississippi valley or the
great lakes region, and far preferable
to live in.
A Puget Sound exchange says that
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