The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1895-05-13
Fruits, Fish, Farm and FOrests--sho
Has Them All, and Unlimited
Water Power.
SOIL AND CROPS.

The northwestern portion of the
British Columbia was at one time sub
jected to q tremendous overflow Of lava,
and In consequence the mountain ranges
are composed of basalt, while the
prairies of Eastern Oregon and Wash
ington have that same material for a
foundation. It is the greatest mass of
basalt in the known globe. Following
this, the country between the Rocky
mountains and the Cascades, or their
continuation, the Sierra Nevadas, was
covered by a vast inland sea, and the
soil of this region therefore is sediment
ary, consequently largely of decomposed
basalt, and is therefore exceedingly rich
in plant food, and Its wearing qualities
are unexcelled. 1t will stand recropping
to cereals longer than any other, and is
in this respect practically inexhausti-
BILE. 1t yields generously, even to the
slipshod methods of farming to which
much of it is subjected, and while not
every crop is the best, such thing as a
total failure is unknown. It retains
moisture we'll, and good crops OF wheat
can be, and in some years have been
grown without seeing a drop of rain
from the time the seed was sown until
the grain was harvested.
Everything that can be grown in the
temperate zone will do well here, though,
in common with most of the Pacific
coast, corn is not raised extensively on
account of the GOODNESS of the nights.
Wheat, oats, barley, potatoes and vege-
tables of all kinds do well and yield
abundantly. The staple crop of the
country has been, and for that matter is
yet, wheat, which was raised in large
quantities, and which found it's market
in Europe, going by way of the Horn.
Until very recently this was depended
upon by the farmers as the sum total of
farming. The recent extremely low
prices for wheat has changed this, and
the farmers soon found that putting
their wheat into hogs and cattle was
far more profitable than shipping it.
Growing the wheat can be done at
trihing expense, and in fact it can be
put in the stack or barn ready for feed
ing at less price per bushel than corn.
Under the methods used, one man with
six horses will plough eight acres per
day, and as the seed is sown by machin-
cry, the broadcast sower, covering q
strip eighty feet in width, whole farm
can be seeded in few days. The har-
vesting Is done with headers, and hall
dozen men and boys will put twenty
i've acres in the stack every day. There
is no cultivation required as in the case
of corn, and hehce one man will seed and
harvest four or five times the acreage he
could in that grain.
Heretofore farmers have shipped
wheat and imported bacon and other
hog products; now the grain fields ol
Wasco are not only supplying the local
demand, but the surplus is finding q
market in Omaha and Chicago. This
will stimulate the farming industry, al
it not only gives market for the grain
but cuts off the expense of threshing
the costs of sacks, and the hauling o.
the grain to market, the three items O
expense amounting to from 20 to 81
cents per bushel, according to distance
from the shipping point. Oats, barley
and rye all do WE'LL hut are not raisec