The Butler weekly times., 1893-05-04
The Northwest.

any icl thet lSSitiEbt Vi DdteS tUGu-
y now residing in some ether place
to write description Of the county /
is which they reside, / shall try 20 .
give the readers Of the TINES few .
items from this the southern part |
Of Washington and northeastern
Oregon, with some of its advantages, |
disadvantages, sol, climate, puf-
suits Of it's citizens, etc.
We are located about 20 miles
from the Columbia river, and near
the base Of the Simcoe mountains.
low range of mountains extending
from Mt. Adams, in the Cascades, in
an easterly direction until they ter
inmate in low hills near the junction
0; Snake and Clark's branches Of
the Colum bia These hills or noun
tains lie between us and the Yak
ma valley to our north, which is
much warmer than here, on account
OF its being more than one
thousand feet lower. This, klicki
tat county, is one hundred and thir-
ty-one miles long from east to west
and from thirty to fifty miles wide.
It is principally bunch grass
country and adapted to stock rails
ing more than to agriculture. The
soil is very good from two to four
feet deep. The trouble is there is
not enough moisture through the
summer to insure crop, and anoth.
er drawback to farming is that the
land is all cut up by swails, or rocky
depressions, running in all directions
through the land These are just
the depth of the soil and where we
have deep swails we have deep soil.
A man thinks he has an extra good
claim il he gets one hundred acres
of plow land ON a quarter section;
it's above an average and then its all
in patches. To look over it it ap.
pears to be a level country, but
when we start to travel we find deep
canyons from 800 to 500 feet deep
and generally very rocky. I know
rancLers who live one and two miles
apart that have to travel fifteen and
twenty to get to each other by wag-
on. We are about 5000 feet above
the Columbia river and only twenty
miles away. but still we have very
good roads over which to haul grain
to market, as its down hill all the
way. Our grain market is very poor
as the river is in the way, and al
present there are no boats on the riv
er, but the boats are to be put OF
this summer and then the grain car
be marketed on this side. Airing
ton, Ore, is the principal shipping
point for large section of countr,
on both sides of the river. We hav.
) both a steam and sail ferry boat a
that place.
Twety bushels of wheat per acre
is considered fair crop here, but i
sometimes reaches 80 and over
Some oats and barley are raised but
the principal crop is wheat and sowl
mostly in the spring. All see'
grain must be questioned, thorough
" wet with vitriol water, before be
ing sown. This is to prevent smut
Timothy cannot be raised here a
. it is too dry and wheat is cut for ha.
and sells at from six to ten dollar
t per ton. Wheat sells for about 81
cts per bushel. So it sometime
pays better to cut for hay as there i
most always demand for that b.
sheep men.
Tha range IS about gone for cattl
aud horses as the bunch grass is a
eaten out, but there has a little fin
grass started which is much bette
for sheep, and consequently tn
number OF sheep is increasing rap
idly and horses and cattle are de
creasing and very cheap. I saw yer
good young cows sell here thi
spring for SIS, but the cattle ar
inferior to Missouri cattle Goo
young horses bring from $40 to 81;
Some good horses are raised here
but they do not raise any mules s
Iall.