Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-06-02
The New Lands Of the West.

that it will do better this.
The New Lands Of the West
have been writing considerable about
Canda and its wheat belt. The Canucks
have an empire yet to develop. and they
think that Uncle Sam has reached the maxi
mum of his farming possibilities There
was never a greater mistake. We are dis
covering new lands every year, and some OF
the best parts of our country are yet to be
reclaimed.
A great deal of the Big Bend region can
be farmed without irrigation, and there
are reclamation projects on hand
which will redeem millions of acres. This
very land through which 1 have been riding
could have been bought about decade ago
for five or ten cents an acre The Northern
Pacific Railroad Company owned vast
quantity of 1t, consisting of alternate sec
tons for fifty miles along its track. 1t had
the lands examined by scientific experts,
and on the basis of their representation a
great deal of the concession went for
song. The same lands are now worth
twenty dollars and upward per acre. They
are producing wheat, and 1t is believed they
will continue to yield for generation with
out fertilization. The lands along the Great
Northern railway are equally good, and the
whole region will rapidly settle.
Take the bleak and bare hills Just opposite
this town of Wenatchee. They are being
cut up into farms and will soon be covered
with wheat A short time ago you could
not have given them away, and now they
are worth q good price as farming lands.
They are cultivated without irrigation, and
to the surprise of the scientific wiseacres
are producing wonderful crops.
Grain From the Desert.
/ find that grain is now being grown all
along the Columbia, and here and there al
most everywhere throughout the inland en-
pire The land is handled on a mighty
scale, the finest of agricultural machinery
being used. There are steam plows now
turning the soil which will cut nine burrows
at time, and steam harvesters, one of
which will reap and thrash fifty acres or
wheat In day. Such machines cut a
swath fourteen feet wide and deliver the
grain in bags The expenses OF cultivation
are so reduced that wheat is now grown at
a cost of twenty-eight cents bushel, which
means net 100 per cent profit. hear all
sorts of fairy stories as to big crops. Farm
ers say single acres have produced seventy
bushels of wheat and one quarter section
Is cited as turning out ten thousand bushels
of oats in one year.
Speaking of the wheat along the Column
bia / had chat the other night with Mr..
T. A. Davies, general manager of the Co
Iumbia and Okanogan Steamship Company,
whose boats run about one hundred ana
fifty miles up the Columbia and Okanogan
rivers. through a country not reached by
the railroads. He says that his vessels
brought more than a million bushels OF
wheat down to the Great Northern at
Wenatchee last year, and that great part
of the country is being put under wheat
The farmers haul the grain to the
river landings and pile 1t there in bags In
mounds At one station last fall
$4,000 sacks, containing 10000 bushels of
grain. were brought in for shipment, and
there were stacks of bags all along the
river. In many places the river runs two
thousand feet below the level of the wheat
fields. and the bags are carried down to the
boats on aerial trans, the wheat carrying
the empty cars back.
river carrying wheat, fruit and passengers
He tells me that the country is rapidly
settling, and that from the shore of the
river eastward is a vast expanse of wheat
fields. There are also dairy farms, and
farther up mining settlements. The cattle
country begins at the mouth of the Okla
nogan and beyond it is rich mining re-
gion.
All along the way are little valleys de-