The Colfax gazette. [volume] (Colfax, Wash.) 1893-1932, 1907-08-30
A COMBINED HARVESTER
Its Operations as Seen on the
Farm of w. ]. Hamilton.
Beautiful Home of Pioneer in One
of Rich Sections of Paiouse--
Where Wheat Is King.

The combined harvester is a great
piece OF mechanism. What the per
fecting press and the lineotype is
to the allied printing trades, the COM
cereal crops. At one operation it cuts,
threshes and sack the grain, doing the
work rapidly, perfectly and at less cost
than by any other method, usual cOndi-
tions prevailing. The machine is manu-
factured at Stockton, California, where
it has been operated on the level
stretches OF the great Sacramento and
San Joaquin valleys of that state for
many years, but it is only within recent
times that this labOr-saving device has
been brought into use in the region
known as the Inland Empire, at the
present time the greatest wheat-prOduc-
ing section Of the Pacific slope. Possibly
the reason it was not introduced before
was the belief that it was not adapted
to hilly country. such as we find in the
Palouse. Experience has demonstrated,
however, that steep side hills are no bar
to the use OF the combined harvester, it
doing it's work as perfectly there as on
level ground, albeit it would not be pos
sible to use steam as a prOpelling power
as is done on the level plains of Califor-
MIA. Hence horses or mules must be
counted in connection with its use in
most sections OF the Palouse.
Estate of Pioneer.
Taking advantage of kind invitation
last Saturday representative of The
Gazette satisfied long desire to witness
one of these machines in action. 1t was
on the farm of w. J. Hamilton, 10 miles
south OF Colfax. An early morning ride
through the greater length of Spring
fat (sO called) led over a gentle divide
separating Spring from Union fat, the
broad acres Of Mr.. Hamilton extending
from one to the other and embracing an
estate Of 400 acres. How so many
beautiful valleys in Whitman county
came to be named FLATS" is hard to uD-
derstand, as they are all perfect valleys,
some Of them 80 or more miles in extent,
with we'll defined boundaries Spring
fat is one of these. 1t is 10 or II miles
long, from a quarter to a half mile in
width, filled with beautiful homes from
one extreme to the other, and one leaves
it's haunts with regret the first time en-
tering it, fearful Of reaching something
not in unison with the beauty, peace and
happiness that everywhere prevails. Not
so, however. Passing through a lateral
vale we enter the great wheat field of Mr..
Hamilton, which rolls over hill after bill
and down through many delle, after the
fashion of most PalOuse farms, until it
reaches Union fiat, a deep valley that
parallels Spring fiat on the west. The
views from the elevated heights of Mr..
HamitOn's estate are most inspiring.
On these rounded hills the heaviest crops
OF wheat grow, and here also is spread a
panorama Of wheat field after wheat
field extending in every direction as far
as the eyes can reach. SteptOe Butte
looms up in the north; kamiac Butte is
a near by picture in the east, while the
overlapping mountains in Idaho and the
Blue mountains in Oregon complete a
q scene in nature, with all the color effects,
seldom met with elsewhere. Nature no
where else has made such landscape
gardens, never painted fairer pictures nor
set them in more stately frames. 1t was
in this fruitful spot that W. j. Hamilton
settled in 1872, and here he has lived
and prOspered and seen the country grow
from a wilderness, inhabited by wild
tribes of Indians, into one of the richest
sections of the Pacific northwest. His
old house on Union fiat, built in 1872,