The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1893-04-10

Issue bonds for the construction Of dikes
and drainage ditches It 10 curious1act
that the same state hes found it necessary
to make IN irrigation Law for the interior
districts, enabling them to issue bonds for
the building Of canals to water the arid
lands. Thus the state devisss means for
rapid development.
The Stanwood fats, at the mouth Of the
Skaeit river, are lands from two to Eve
feet below high tide. They reach far out
into the Sound, where dixie protects the
wster front. Running back 70 the hills,
interesting the level fields, are drainage
bitches. protected on each side BY six-foot
embankments, on the flat tops Of which
are foot paths and wagon roads. Steady
streams dow down through them into the
seq at low tide. but when the tide comes
in the automatic gates shut, and these
streams Of fresh water back MP and fill the
broad bitches like canals. 1t is then that
logs from the forests a.s drifted down
through them.
The peculiar spectacle sppears Of paddle
boats moving swiftly above the green
fields in these elevated waterways. A
common sight il to see boat tied to the
back door steps Of the farm houses, next
to washtub. All buildings are on piles,
for overdows from the foothills are fire.
qnent in the rainy season, when the
rivers overflow their banks and levees.
These marsh lands are incomparably
rich from the alluvium of mineral and
vegetable matter from the hills and
the deposits left by the tides Here arc
raised probably the largest yield Of oats to
the acre in the world, the standard product
being 100 to 10 bushels. Twenty-three
thousand acres have been reclaimed from
the marshes. This farming district has its
own port of shipment at La Conner. Ships
take in whole cargoes of oats for the oat-
meal mills Of San Francisco. Such richly
cultivated acres give the impression of
long settled community. Most Of this
work of reclamation has been done within
ten years.
On each side Of this cultivated region.
are evidences of evolution from forest
swamps. A recent settler has cleared and
fenced few acres. The Riant stumps send
MP blue wreaths of smoke, and in this
charred space is the rough lumber shack
house. Where the cleared plowed fields
indicate that . crop or two has been grown
it 10 usual to see painted house adjoining
the forest farm. It seems that this
whole waste must eventually be converted
into farms like those of New Jersey.
Many products are grown besides the SIM
pie staples of oats and hay. As in the
state Of New York, here Is hop-growing
industry with an astonishing yield an
acre. Eighteen hundred pounds is the
standard product, as compared with 600 to
700 pounds in New York, while there are
records Of forced crops of from 1000 to
1900 pounds an acre. An old dryhouse
and hourishing young prune orchard tell
the story of q good Methodist preacher
whose hop crop brought him $35 600 one
year. when his conscientious scruple pre-
vailed about the use the crop had been pnt
to-making beer-and he planted this Or
chard of prune trees.
Az the train passes into British territory
1t seems as if dead line" had been
crossed. The cars are almost empty, and
the small local freight is hauled IN box
cars attached to the passenger train. The
character of the country changes. TOO; be-
comes rocky, mountainous, forbidding.
It 10 colder, and patches of snow lie along
the track, wintrv signs that have long
since disappeared from the more genial
southern side.
Douglass is the FIRST station. The Cana
dams supposed town would spring up
here just as on the American border, so
they laid out town site and cleared long
street through the trees. But they are
still waiting for the first house to be built.
The railroad soon reaches the Fraser
river. majestic stream, and following it .
few miles terminates at South Westmin-
ster. Across the broad river, 80 strikingly
like our Columbia. is the pretty English
town Of New Westminster.