Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1904-04-08

-iiic ID d WhIlaIc, anu III the mluSt
of life you are in debt.
This uncertainty of existence, and
the toll demanded to obtain the bare
necessities of life from a parsimonious
soil has produced parsimonious race
OF people. Uncertainty makes them
timid, and the most sensitive spot in
New England is in the neighborhood
of the pocketbook. The New Eng
lander is sharp, asture, willy and sus-
picious. The reason he thinks folks
are trying to get the better OF him is
because he is trying to get the better
of them.
Like all men, the New Englander
creates his god in his own image. A
man who snoops, always pictures God
as great snooper. The typical New
Englander's god is small, mean, snoo. .
ing, quibbling and tyrannical. The
god is everywhere at once and knows
what everybody is doing, even in the
dark, and he has An angel secretary
who writes it all down. He is going
to damn everybody who does not love
him and acknowledge him in meetin'.
But the New Englander has virtues
"A good deal OF granite gets into his
blood, and when you transplant him
into a more friendly soil. you may
produce Lawson pink or something.
Let us swing back to Puget Sound
and take a look at the transplanted
people. They are most of them New
Englanders, or defendants OF New
Englanders, who made their way by
easy stages to New York, Ohio, Illinois,
Iowa, Minnesota-and Washington.
The western portion of Washington
has a climate like that Of the south of
England. Very seldom does the mer-
curry drop to freezing, and in summer
the heat is never oppressive. The
gentle humidity in the atmosphere
makes a country of perpetual green
The state flower is the rhododendron.
but it might better have been the rose,
for while roses do not bloom in Wash
ington all the year round, yet they re-
quire no special care for winter. and
in summer in the park at Tacoma
they form forest of blossoms.
There must be happy mean of eli
mate, just enough to make exertion
pleasant-and it seems 10 be in Wash
ington. In q more severe climate,
where there are strong winds, there is
as much of the tree under ground as
there is above. In Washington much
more of the plant is above ground than
is under. Where the mistletoe, the
moses and ferns flourish, all vegeta-
ton hourishes. There is no miasma
in Washington, no mosquitoes, no
more snakes than in Ireland. Where
there are poisonous snakes and insects,
there man must fight; he not only
fights these, but he fights other men,
witness Central America in a state
of Mt. Peele revolution and much OF
South America set on hair.trigger.
In Washington you must work to
make nature give up her treasures,
but she is SO lavish in her returns that
men naturally grow lavish and gener-
Gus, too. What think you of four
crops of alfalfa q year on the same
field? or one crop Of asparagus. one OF
watermelons and one OF turnips? In
the Wenatchee valley, land that lies
"under the ditch" is worth often three
hundred dollars an acre, simply be.
cause it will pay fifty per cent. on the
investment.
Apples raised in the State OF WASH
ington are sold on the markets OF New
York City and Boston, and melons by
the carload 60 to st. Paul and Mime.
apolis, completely cutting off this mar.
ket from the South.
New England has neither coal, iron.
copper, gold nor silver in her hills, but
Washington has all these, besides
mines of lead, arsenic and borax, from
which quiet working men are now
lifting fortunes.
As for forests, such trees exists no.
where else on the continent as on the
western coast. The spruce gets much
OF its nourishment from the air-the
climate must be moists. kindly,
equable, and free from violent storms
or it will not grow. Its hold upon
the soil is comparatively slight, but it
literally towers to the skies. Spruce
trees in Washington often cut eight
feet across the butt, and if you want q
stick hundred feet long, any sawmill
will suppy it.
As for water, the city OF Seattle
simply built dam at the snowline OF
the Cascade mountains, thirty miles
away, but has gravity pressure that
would be dangerous were it not strong
ly controlled. and in quantity there is
a supply for city of q million people.
This supply can never be contaminat'
ed, because humanity will not live
above the snow.line, and a. for econ
omy in the use Of water,-why, West
ern Washington will laugh at you.
Puget Sound has q natural harbor
land-locked for two hundred miles In
length, with An entrance from the sea