The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1902-03-20
NUMBER 27,
LETTER FROM AISLE SPENCER.
Writes from the Big Timber
Country.
BRYANT, WASHINGTON,

DeiuS Il COHSIttnI feduer Oh Un0
News, and highly appreciating it
too, it has occurred to me that per-
haps, some of my Fulton county
friends would be interested, in
reading something about this far
away corner of our great Repub-
lie; if we have any corners.
Weare situated on Puget Sound
a struggling body of water that
seems to be trying to push it's
way into land from the Pacific
ocean. 1t contains lots ofislands,
and is surrounded by most excel
ent land. 1t is up in this corner
of the world that your neighbors
Leonard Heidi, and the Holman
family from the Big Cove, are liv-
ing.
This is generally supposed to
be the rainy season here ON the
coast, but so far, but little rain
has fallen, and it is warm and
pleasant and the grass is getting
quite green.
This may sound strange to you;
for we lie over 500 miles nearer
the north pole than does McCon-
nellsburg; in fact we are farther
north than Toronto or Montreal
Canada, or the northern part of
Maine or Nova Scotia; but in the
face of all that we can beat Fulton
county in climate for 1 dare say
you have no grass growing there,
even when you read this letter.
Our climate is modified by the
Japan current, and the school
boys and girls can have their
teachers explain to them all about
it.
We bad two weeks of winter in
January-snow falling to the
depth of ten inches, and the mer-
curry dropping to ten degrees
above zero, which is considered
very cold here, so cold, indeed,
that men refused to work until
the weather moderated.
The principal wealth of the
country is its timber resources
which is wonderful and beats the
world in it's quantity to the acre
of ground, making from five to
eight million feet to the claim, of
l6O acres, mostly red cedar, fir,
and spruce. The trees grow large
and tall. We often get five forty
foot logs to the tree. L helped to
fell tree last autumn that the
butt log scaled ii, 400 feet of lum-
ber and was eleven feet on the
stump, and perfectly sound. In
your county if you fell tree, you
must crook your back like rain
bow or get on your knees; here
you work on spring boards and
saw trees off from six to ten feet
above ground-sometimes much
higher. The day of logging here
with cattle and horses has long
since past. 1t is all done now
with steam power. An upright
engine with a revolving drum
spool and thousand feet of Inch
wire cable does the work, with
one horse to take the line to the
logs. One engine will take out
from 10000 to $4,000 feet of logs
per day.
Wages Is good in the logging
camps here, ranging from 1926
to $4.00 per day according to the
job a man is capable of filling and
his knowledge of wood craft
Then you are charged $500
week for board. Taking in all
climate, wages, and amount of
work going on-I think if the
working man has paradise this
must be it; but it would cause
many an eastern church-goin
person to open his eyes with hor-
ror, if he could be dropped here
some Sunday morning and see,
the way things are run. All the
towns are run on the "wide open''
principle, and all the necessary"
business houses, such as saloons,
gambling places, and stores, are
not closed; and fishing, hunting,
and working go on as usual.
Summcrs-king.
AT the Lutheran, Parsonage in