Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1903-02-04
ECHOES FROM THEPACIFIC
IMPRESSIONS OF A NEW RESIDENT
An Interesting Letter Describing That
Country from W. NJ. Baker, Re.
Gently of Button.
st. John, Wash, Jan. 21, 1908.

DEBORAH, Jan I'd and arrived in this
place Jan. 9Th, at II 40 p. M. had to
run around St. Paul and catch my
train at Minneapolis, but left my
baggage one day behind. We came
through on the Great Northern from
Minneapolis without accident, but
we failed to see much of the noun
tains, as it was nearly dark when we
got to them. We had two compound
engines to take us up to the summit
and coming down on this side we ran
into snow slide and tore the pilot
off and the steam cocks were broken
off so that they had to stop at every
station and get up steam until we got
to Kalispell, Mont, where we changed
crews and engines. Coming down
from there we ran into team and
they stopped the train and went back
and Investigated but there was no one
with them, don't know whether they
killed the team or not anyway we
were four hours late in Spokane, and
spent six hours in Spokane before a
train on the Oregon Navigation Co.
r. r. started for Tecoa Junction, and
then we had to lay there one hour and
forty-fve minutes when we boarded
a freight caboose and came on to this
place, arrived at II :45 p. m.
This is quite nice little place, in
a valley among the hills. There is
lots of business done in st. John and
there are two large buildings now
under construction. One is a large
agricultural warehouse and the other
is large feed mill with a large hall
overhead They have no bank here
and there is a good opening for the
Winnesheik County bank to start a
branch here. There is also an open
ing for Ben Bear, square dealer, to
open branch store here as there is
no clothing store here There are
two general stores, two drug and
grocery stores, harness shop, livery,
hardware, furniture store, one or two
other small concerns barber shop,
two blacksmith shops, a hotel, several
grain warehouses, large elevator
and coal, wood and lumber yard
This is claimed to be the second best
wheat town in Washington, handling
over Q,000,000) one million bushels
of wheat this season Wheat is now
selling for go cents and the ranch /
am living on raised 35 bushels of
wheat per acre last year and they had
nearly 400 acres in wheat. They only
SOW one half of their land each year
and summer following the other half
After they have taken or crops off
of the new land it gets weedy and
they pillow ii in June and let it lay
and pasture it during the summer and
the next year it will raise from 80 to
80 bushels per acre. By doing this
way they get larger yields and are not
so crowded with their work. The
country here is very rough and the
hills are very steep and they work
most of them right up to the top. 1t
would make farmer back there hold
his hair on to see them working on
some of these hills. They work most
ly all five horse teams on their gang
plows and they have no seats on the
plows either, as they all walk and
they drive four horses on their
wagons if they have any load to haul,
and many of them use six The grain
is nearly all cut with header that
cuts IL or IA feet wide and is pushed
by eight horses that are behind the
header. man stands on platform
to drive the horses and steers the
header, and cuts from % to 30 acres
per day. A heading crew consists of
a man to run the header, s horses and
A header boxes with horses on each,
and driver for each, one man to load
and two to stack the grain or men
and "A horses in all They get from
Sl.50 to 81. 70 per acre for heading and
stacking, and you board them and
then the threshing outfit charges 10
cents per sack for threshing the wheat
but they furnish everything but the
sacks. All you have to do is to haul
the grain away and pay your bill. In
some places they have a machine that
cuts the grain and threshes it and puts
it in bags all at one operation, which
is driven by 80 horses, but it is too
rough here for that. They can't cut
with binder here on account of it
being so rough that you couldn't keep
them right side up. The whole
country was once big volcano and
the soil is all volcanic ashes and is
very rich tie highest hills are the
best land and most of them are free
from rock, some places however have
rock on the top of the ground and it
all shows the effect of fire. In some
places where the railroad has cut
through the hills you will sometimes
find hard head rocks piled up like
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