The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1882-03-31
WALLA WALLA.
By, j. B. Homer.


streams, large and small. An East
ern writer says: sit has water power
sufficient to turn all the spindles i'll
the world"
The Wal!a Walla valley is mainly
within Washington Territory, and
form three of the largest counties In
that Territory. 1t was formed by
the great Columbia river which, un-
til last year, was its orly natural
financial outlet.
The valley is about one hundred
and twenty miles long by seventy
miles wide and embraces nine tbous-
and square miles which contain five
million, seven hundred, and sixty
thousand acres. About eight-nin,h
of the land is very productive.
The climate and soil so favor agri-
culture that the production Of wheat.
corn, rye, barley and oats is not
excelled by any valley on the West
ern slope. One million bushels of
wheat and vast quantities of flour
has been the average annual export;
and, since the new railroad facilities
and recent rapid growth of the
country, this amount will be aug
mented by one-thrd.
1t already contains about twenty
one thousand farms of l6O acres each.
New farms are being improved con-
tinually. Ground that, twenty years
ago, was considered barren has since
been cultivated into farms that pro-
dace wheat in large quantities.
A farmer who lived there fifteen
years, prepared and published the
following brief statement:
"Wheat, twenty-five bushels; oats, thirty
bushels; barley, thirty bushels; corn, forty
bushels; beans, thirty-six bushels; potatoes,
five hundred bushels; sweet potatoes, two
hundred bushels; turnips, three hundred
bnshcls; carrots, one thousand bushels;
parsnips, eight hundred bushels; cabbage,
twenty thousand pounds; hay, two and a
half tons. Apples, forty thousand pounds;
pears, forty thousand pounds; cherries,
twenty thousand pounds; peaches, thirty
thousand pounds; plums, fifty thousand
pounds. Vines and shrubs: Grapes, forty
thousand pounds; currants, ten thousand
pounds; gooseberies. five thousand pounds;
black and raspberries, each fifteen thousand
pounds"
When creeks are not near, Satcr
is found by digging from six to
sixty>ieet deep. Ten years hence tie
farmers will, doubtless, secure their
water like the people of Yolo and
other counties OF California. Wind
mills will adorn every farm not
favored with streams.
The distance to wood has been the
main drawback to the country.
Good rails are hauled from three to
thrifty miles. A coal mine has beer
discovered at the extreme upper end
of fthe valley. In one year fuel viii
be abundant. Capitalists are ship
ping timber into the valley by means
of fumes Cord wood in the city
of Walla Walla is sold in the sum-
mer for five dollars per cord. 1t
will probably be reduced to tour
dolla,s.
The soil is of two kinds: an early
ashy loan mixed with whitlsh clay;
the other soil is black sticky soil
know as rosc-brush land. The for
mer is the hllly land, the latter is the
soil of The gulches. The farmers
plow on the hills Immediately after a |
a rain, but in the gulches weeks are
required for "drying." The hllly
land never cracks; the black land
does. The soil is from three to thir-
teen feet deep. Under the soil is
clay. Under that clay there is an
alluviated formation of smooth stones
and sediment. 1t is IN this latter
formation that water is found.
Walla Walla cityis the metropolis
Of the valley and contains about six
thousand wide-awake inhabitants.
It was, until last year, the terminus
Of the railroad and the acknowledg ged
center of the valley.
it is not the terminus of
he railroad, yet it has advanced one
'tep higher-it is way-station on
one of the leading railroads of our
To give a limited idea of
he people of that section and the bus
ness done you are referred TO the
Dostoffic elocal distribution of that
which you will observe is
greater than that of Portland. ,
sit is great shame that man
ike Hawthorne should have been
orced to be the tide waiter and s
ollower of political party" said
ar. Collyer i'm recent sermon. i