The Republican journal., 1904-12-29
The State of Washington.
FARMING, NUMBERING, EDUCATION
AND RELIGION.

To THE EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL:
have before me a journal in which is cop
led from the Piscataquis Observer letter
telling of the damage done by June frosts
IN Washington The potato crop was nearly
destroyed in some localities and they are
about ten cents per bushel higher than
usual as the result of June frosts. Perhaps
Maine people do not often pick ripe straw
berries from the vines in November. or often
take a thousand dollars worth of apples
from a single acre of land, as has been
done this season from many an acre be-
tween here and Mt. Hood.
Near the base of Mt. Adams is cheese
factory and creamery, making cheese in
summer and butter in winter. The farm
ers along the narrow White Salmon valley
raise clover for their COWS by irrigation.
The valley is one or two miles wide, bound
ed on each side by quite high mountains.
About half way between the Columbia and
Mt. Adams is a logging camp, employing
forty men and about twenty horses. Their
expenses are about 500 per day. Most of
the farmers for several miles north of the
camp are logging. They get So per thousand
for fir logs and $3.50 for pine. The logs are
tioated down the river. A dam has been
built at a cost of $1,000 near the source of
the river to furnish water to flood the chan
mel once or twice day. Another dam at
cost of $4,000 has been built near the mouth
of the river to stop the logs. Then the mill
to saw the logs is just across the Columbia.
Tha al, mud
is broken by dynamite. Men working on
the river get 81 per day and have meals
brought to them four times a day; but a
man is drowned in this river about every
year.
The slowness with which the forest is re-
moved and the soil rendered productive re-
minds one of the slowness of the growth of
educational sentiments. The trainers of
our State constitution attempted to sever
the connection between education and relig
ion by forbidding religious instruction in
the public schools while most States mere
ly forbid sectarian instruction. Our adopt
ed physiology leaning in the same direction
teaches that the nervous tissue is the mas
ter tissue. This would seem to be an athe
istic teaching, for if the controlling power
of the body is merely more delicately Or
ganized tissue, the controlling power of the
Universe might be of the same nature on a
grander scale. have met only one teacL-
er in the State of Washington who advocat-
ed the above theory. l once heard the
President of our State University say that
he always had read the Bible in school and
always would, although our highest educa-
tional authority has handed down the de-
csion that the Bible can not be read in the
public schools of this State.
All educational and religious progress is
brought about by differences of opinion. l
saw something of this at the Oregon Year
ly Meeting of Friends, or Quakers, few
years ago. The sermon was eloquent and
impressive, but it exhibited the life and
teachings of Jesus as the saving qualities
which we should seek When he had fin
ished a preacher to whom l had listened
when l was a boy in Maine, got up and
said that any attempt to weaken the blood
OF Christ weakens our religion. AS man
becomes more reasonable there seems to be
accomplish any needed reform. Our pres
ent liberties have cost the blood of many
martyr and hero. But in the future it may
be as easy to place man in communication
with the Author of the Universe as it is to
converse with brother on the opposite
side of our globe GEO NJ. COLE.
Hasum, Wash, Dec. Is, 1904