The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1904-06-15
Interesting Letter From Washington.

CoLvILLE, Wash, May IS, 1901.
EDITOR REPUBLICAN:
Twill write short sketch of Washing
ton as have seen it: l have been here
over year now, so l have experienced
all the seasons. 1t gets very hot here
during the summer as the sun gets a cou-
pie of hours more per day to get in his
work. 1t 10 light enough to read news
paper here at a. m, and only dusk at
8 p. m. The rapcbers sow wheat in the
spring-often plowing it under-and a
mixture of wheat and oats TO be cut
green for "hay." This beats Penn'a for
growing any kind of fruit or vegetables.
l have only missed couple of our east
ern products here, i. e., corn and grapes.
The nights are too cold here for corn
one can sleep under blankets here the
year round-or so the ranchers claim.
My private opinion is that corn requires
too much work for these people here.
Work is avoided as much as possible, and
many of the ranchers make a good living
and do not average two days work
week. All kinds of fruit grows abun-
dainty and is very fine, with the excep-
tion of apples. They look nice, but l
have not found a single one that was as
finely favored as they were in Penn'a.
There are ripe Strawberries now. We
have also plenty of snow in sight yet, a
few thousand feet up on the mountains,
and only three miles from here. / am
five miles from Colville.
| saw two unusual sights in the spring.
One was juneberry bush in bloom with
in a rod of snow bank. The other was
frogs sitting on cakes of ice and croak-
ing. The frogs speak different language
here, and, if possible, a more discordant
one. We have chipmunk here similar
to the ones back there, only darker and
smaller, with tail twice rs long. They
also talk "Siwash" and do not "chip"
like the ones we used to hear in Penn'a.
There is also ground squirrel here-a
copy of the woodchuck. He is larger
than the black squirrel and can destroy
more vegetation than a rabbit. White
rabbits are to be found here also, but not
the little gray one. Trout are very plen-
tiful in the streams. Deer are to be
found everywhere, and bears are not
scarce. Blue grouse are thick on the
mountain sides, but rarely come down
into the valleys. Pheasants are found in
srit,
Forest county. They are numerous here
around our camp and one can see deer
tracks in ten minutes walk from the
mill
Timber land is being gobbled up like
gold nuggets. There is fine layout Tor
some one with some money, about four
TO fifteen miles from here. There is good
timber and plenty of it. Yellow pine at
first and running back to belt of white
pine as fine as ever grew in Penn'a. l
saw some of it, but being alone and
strange did not venture very far into it.
/ saw white pine that had fallen over into
the creek; we were fishing II was not
alone this time but stopped TO measure
it. With only three feet ola diameter it
reached l64 feet, and was four inches in
/ diameter where the top had broken Off
then. Fish story! I am right there
with the goods" aud will pay your ex-
| penses here and back if I can't show you
hundreds, yea, thousands, just as long,
The white pine belt has been visited by
!
! but few people. There are about Ii, 600