The islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1891-1899, 1895-02-07

lCdulliS St"oSo VI 0iO
diversified farming. In the extern
sive valleys tributary to Puget
sound the soil is rich, black and
bottomless, often a veritable muck.
Surrounding Puget sound and along
the coast line are large areas of tide
land, of which 10000 acres already
reclaimed by dyking are found
wonderfully productive of all ordi-
nary cereals and vegetables. These
are rich, black and practically in
exhaustable fertility. Wheat and
oats yield splendidly and quality
good. Enormous crops of oats are
raised on the tide lands of Puget
sound. Instances are common ola
hundred bushels of oats to the acre.
Oats rarely sell for less than SIS
per ton and often command $50.
Barley and rye are fairly successful,
while corn, on account of the cool
climate, does not produce album
dainty this side Of the Cascades.
On the eastern sides it has met with
greater success.
One of the most important crops
raised in Washington is that OF
grass. There is no country where
hay yields better, or is produced
cheaper or where it remains green
longer-in fact, the year round
than in Washington. 1t is said
that five tons of timothy hay have
been cut from single acre and an
average Of four tons on a numbt r
of farms. Glover, blue grass, and
orchard grasses are luxurant grow
ers and make the tenderest and
sweetest forage.
The root crops, under which head
are enumerated beets, carrots, par
ships, turnips, ETC., yield prodigi
ously on the fertile bottom lands
without much care besides ordinary
cultivation. The table beet fire.
quently gets too large for the dinner
pot. 1t is nothing unusual for
garden beet to weigh ten pounds,
and they often grow to eighteen
and twenty pounds weight. Man
gle wurzel, the stock beet, some
times grows to forty or fifty pounds
weight. Thirty tons of sugar beets
have been grown to the acre, as
have also fifteen tons of cabbage
and $50 sacks of potatoes have been
raised On a single acre. Here are
some samples of huge vegetable
monstrocities raised in the state:
Onion weighing four pounds and
one ounce; potato, eight pounds and
four ounces; radish nine and one
half pounds; beet, thirty pounds;
pumpkin, ninety-three pounds; a
watermelon, sixty-four pounds; a
cabbage, fifty-three pounds, and a
squash, 100 pounds.
The following vegetables grow
to perfection: Cabbage, asparagus
beans, brussels sprouts, caulfower,
carrots, celery, cucumbers, rhu-
barb, spinach, squash, turnips, kale,
leek, lettuce, onions, parsley, par
ships, peas, sweet potatoes, radishes.
The average yield per acre of the
various products in Washington is:
Peas, forty bushels; beans, thirty
six bushels; potatoes, 100 bushels:
turnips, 200 bushels; carrots, 500:
parsnips, 400; cabbages, 10000 Tbs.
A single hill of Puget sound pota-
toes last fall yielded forty-three
pounds, and sixty-seven pounds of
potatoes were raised from ten
pounds planted. Some idea of the
immensely of the potato crop of '94
may be CLEANED from the statement
that from 1900 to 1000 carloads of
Washington potatoes have been
shipper to Eastern markets. These
cars weighed from twelve to fifteen
tons each. The varieties raised on
Puget Sound are known to the trade
as Burbanks, Prolifcs, White Stars
Garnet Chiles, White Elephants.
Early Rose, Late Rose. The prin-
cipal potato raising districts are
White River valley, WILDLY Isle,
Black River valley, the Dungeness
district San Juan and Whatcom