Tacoma, Washington - Compendium of Information Concerning the City of Tacoma and Washington (part 2 of 3)

Those now cleared are chiefly used for the raising of hay and hops. On March ioth the writer of this article has seen in all of the meadows of this valley, cattle, horses and sheep grazing on grass from four to ten inches in height. These hay lands are grazed until about the middle of April, when the stock is taken off to allow the hay to mature and be harvested, after which, about the middle of July, the stock is again turned on the meadows and graze upon them until the middle of the next April. Thus used, these lands yield three to five tons of cured hay per acre, and furnish as much more per acre in grass feed, and some 'have been thus used for twenty years, and are as productive to-day as ever. The richness of the soil and adaptability of the climate account for these yields. One acre of these lands will keep from three to five milch cows, or, put in clover, will fatten ten hogs per annum. One acre has produced, in a single year, six hundred bushels of potatoes, thirty-five hundred pounds of hops, ten tons of clover (three crops), thirty-five tons of sugar-making, sugar beets, carrying 13 per cent, of saccharine matter, one hundred and twenty-five bushels of oats, ninety bushels of barley, and six crops of vegetables. These have been actual yields. On these lands have been raised 8o-pound squashes, 50-pound cabbages, 25-pound rutabagas, 5-pound potatoes, etc.

The soil needs no fertilizing. It is always mellow and easily worked. The bluff lands on the sides of the valley afford building locations commanding extensive views to the White river valley on the north* side, or the Puyallup on the south. Abundant springs of cool, clear water burst from the hills on either side. Fir and cedar are abundant on the bluff land back of the valley, and a saw mill is in operation on the middle of the east side of the valley. A new road to Tacoma is now being graded and graveled from about the center of this valley, which will shorten the distance to about nine miles. The Stuck is sufficiently deep at all times of the year to float a bateau with several hundred bushels of vegetables, and market gardeners could thus, if they chose, bring their goods to the Tacoma market inexpensively via the Puyallup river.

Considerable of this land can be obtained at moderate figures. For a man of a small family and moderate means, who desires to go into grazing or dairying, forty acres is enough, and for gardening twenty acres is abundant. Schools are handy. At Summer, situated at the lower end of the Stuck valley, is a well conducted public school and academy. A branch of the Northern Pacific Railroad runs through the valley into Tacoma for the accommodations of the settlers.

Upper White River Valley

of agricultural and grazing lands lying between the Cascade mountains and the confluence of these two rivers. The western boundary of this tract of land lies about fifteen miles due east of the city of Tacoma.

The soil of this valley is, generally, an alluvial deposit with clay subsoil. The soil is darker in color than that of the Puyallup valley and almost as rich, though not so deep as that of the famous Stuck valley.

From the confluence of these two rivers they diverge until the greatest distance between them across the agricultural area adjoining the foothills of the mountains is about fifteen miles. About equally distant from each of the two rivers and lying between them is a ridge that divides the water-fall. This ridge, however, is not high and precipitous, and is generally composed of shot clay or clay loam adapted to the raising of fruits.

Five or six years ago this land was comparatively unsettled owing, perhaps, to the fact that it was difficult of access to the settler, there being at that time no bridge across the White river by which it could be reached by wagon road from the Puyallup valley. Now, however, nearly all, if not quite all of the government land has been taken, as well as the railroad land, and scores of farmers find prosperity here, where but a few years ago the wild animals of the forest held undisputed sway. The first settlers to take up land in this valley were compelled to ford the White river, which is turbulent and treacherous; now a first-class bridge spans the river, where the old military road running from the Puyallup valley across Connell's prairie crossed it at the ford.

Inside of the last eighteen months the main line of the Northern Pacific Railroad, running from Eastern Washington, has been built through it, and a station called Enumclaw has been established almost in the heart of the valley, giving the settlers here an outlet by rail for their stock, hay, hops and grain.

The timber found throughout all of this upper White river valley on the bottom lands, is not near so dense as in the lower White and Puyallup valleys. It consists generally of a bushy growth of vine-maple and alder. Much of this land has been cleared at an expense of but ten dollars per acre. That the soil is rich is attested by the crops produced here. In the yield and quality the hops raised in this valley are second to none except those raised in the Stuck. In vegetables, hops and grain the yields are larger than in any portion of the Puyallup valley.

For grazing purposes this valley offers extra inducements; the foot-hills of the Cascade mountains furnishing an almost unlimited range for stock.

Before the building of the Cascade division the settlers found difficulty in obtaining lumber for building, there being no mill nearer than the Puyallup valley. Now, however, owing to the favorable rates given by the railroad company, lumber can be obtained along the line of the road almost as cheaply as in Tacoma. A mill is now in operation on the White

Immigrants coming here desiring to engage in agricultural pursuits, can find here cheaper lands than in the Stuck or Puyallup valleys. They will find them easier to be cleared. They will find them in a neighborhood of enterprising Americans and thrifty Germans. They will find them located accessible to market.

A considerable portion of the fruit and vegetables raised in this valley find their market at the coal mines just north of the Green river and south of the White river.

The valley can be reached by two routes - one is by the Cascade division of the Northern Pacific Railroad, the other is by the wagon road leading from the Puyallup valley from Sumner and Elhi. At present the roads are in poor condition, and the commissioners of Pierce county could not expend money more judiciously than in constructing a first-class roadway fifteen or twenty feet in width to this valley, and thus make the trade more directly tributary to Tacoma. The most direct route for this road would perhaps be to extend directly east the new road, now almost completed, from Tacoma to the Stuck valley.

Puget Sound, and is one of the best agricultural counties in Western Washington; has an area of over 2000 square miles, consisting of rich alluvial soil, unsurpassed in productiveness and easy cultivation. On the higher lands prairies of fine soil, woodland and brush lands alternate. Tewis county has a population of 6000 people - law-abiding, intelligent and energetic, and its rich lands, timber, forests and undeveloped mines will afford homes and employment for twenty times its present population- The Pacific division of the Northern Pacific railroad traverses the county throughout its extent from north to south, carrying its commerce very cheaply to Portland, or to the great centers around Puget Sound and in British Columbia.

The Cowlitz river is one of the tributaries of the Columbia, flows through the southern part of the county and is navigable for boats nearly the year around, affording cheap transportation for the produce raised in that part of the county.

The Chehalis river flows through the northwestern part of the county and into Gray's Harbor. Boats have ascended this river as far up as Chehalis City, the county seat of Eewis county; but present boats only ascend thirty miles up the river. Yet, with men of enterprise and liberal appropriations, boats will be enabled to ascend to Chehalis, thus opening access to Gray's Harbor, which bids fair to become one of the great markets of the northwest.

This is one of the finest climates in the known world, the thermometer seldom rising above 90° and rarely lower than io° above zero. Generally we have snowfall lasting from one to four weeks, seldom longer, and often but little snowfall the entire year. Cyclones and violent wind storms are unknown, and we seldom have thunder and lightning of any account. The year is divided into two seasons - the rainy or winter season and the summer season. The winter season generally begins about the first of November, and lasts until about the first of March. Then comes the spring months with occasional showers but of short duration, and a more delightful climate cannot be found than that of Western Washington during the spring and summer months. During the warmest part of the summer we have a cool breeze from the Sound and Gray's Harbor during the day, and the nights are cool and pleasant. The congeniality of the climate, the purest of water, and the close proximity to the Cascade mountains, combine to make this one of the healthiest locations in the world. Stagnant pools of water are seldom seen. Our rivers and streams flow directly from the mountains and foot-hills and are as cool and pure as water can be.

The manufacture of fir and cedar lumber is becoming one of the leading industries of Eewis county. Within the boundaries of this county there are several forests of timber hard to excel in both quality and quantity. At least nine saw mills and five shingle mills are in successful oper ation in Eewis county, producing an output of 200,000 feet of lumber and 170,000 shingles daily.

Chehalis, the county seat, is situated on the line of the N. P. R. R., and has a population of about 600; is 54 miles from Tacoma and 86 miles from Portland; is surrounded by one of the finest farming communities in the Territory; is a thriving and pleasant place, and is the natural shipping point for the greater part of the Chehalis and Newaukum valleys. It has a flouring mill, capacity of about thirty barrels of flour per day; a sash and door factory; a saw mill with a capacity of about 40,000 feet of lumber per day; a pump factory; four churches - Methodist, Episcopal, Baptist and

Centralia is situated on the line of the N. P. R. R., and is a town of about 600 inhabitants, and is the natural outlet for Iyincoln creek, Hanaford and Skookum-chuck valleys and part of the Chehalis valley. It has two sawmills with a capacity of about 50,000 feet of lumber per day; a shingle mill with a capacity of about 50,000 feet of lumber per day; another mill with a capacity of about 35,000 shingles per day; flouring mill (water power); has three churches - Methodist, Baptist and Christian. It is situated on a gravelly prairie, is a very pleasant place to live, and its prospects to become a place of note are good.

(QHEH ARIS County lies in the southwestern portion of Washington Ter- ^ ritory, and its western boundary is washed by the Pacific ocean. The Chehalis river runs through the county from east to west and flows into Gray's Harbor. The valley formed by this river is from three to five miles in width and is very fertile, producing from thirty to fifty bushels of wheat and from forty to seventy-five bushels of oats per acre; while hay, vegetables and small fruits grow in great profusion.

The Satsop and Wynoochie rivers, flowing into the Chehalis from the north, are valleys somewhat smaller in area than the Chehalis but equal in fertility of soil.

is twenty miles in length and from two to fourteen miles in width. The entrance to the harbor is approached over a ' 'bar' ' carrying twenty-six feet of water at low tide. The channel being straight and unchanging enables vessels to enter the harbor with ease and safety. The Humptulips, Hoquiam and Wishkah rivers flow into the harbor from the north, and John's and Blk rivers from the south. These rivers form valleys of great fertility.

Chehalis county is considered to be one of the best timbered counties on the northwest coast, its table lands being covered with Jhe most magnificent forests of fir, spruce and cedar, while its rivers afford ample water to transport this valuable product to the mills, where it is manufac- tured into lumber and shipped to all parts of the world; where, owing to its superior quality it finds a ready market. The cutting of this timber, floating it to the mills and manufacturing it into lumber and shipping it away, give employment to hundreds of men and teams, and give to the farmers a home market for all kinds of farm products, at good prices:

The present population of the county is about 4000, and is rapidly increasing. The people are industrious, enterprising and law-abiding, are prosperous and contented; and being here to stay are building beautiful and permanent homes, commodious churches and school houses.

The Town Of Eema

with a population of 150 inhabitants, located near the Chehalis river twenty miles above its mouth, is centrally located in a fine agricultural country. Its busines men are enterprising and prosperous; its schools and churches a credit to any community, while the general outlook for the growth and prosperity of the town is very bright.

an incorporated city of 1000 inhabitants, is situated on the north bank of the Chehalis river and the east bank of the Wynoochie, and is at the head of deep water navigation on the harbor. It is the county seat of the county. The city is beautifully located, has fin^ graded streets, good business houses, schools and churches. Two lines of daily stages connect the city with Olympia, the capitol of the Territory, while two lines of steamboats make daily trips to all points on the lower harbor and connect with a through line to Astoria, Oregon. And it is expected in the near future that Montesano will be the terminus of a trans-continental railroad. It is surrounded by fine farming lands that are being tilled by an industrious and intelligent class of people.

located on the south bank of the Chehalis river and opposite Montesano, has one hundred inhabitants and a bright future. Its inhabitants are loyal and prosperous and deserve the prosperity that surely awaits them.

situated on the south bank of the river, near where the river is lost in the harbor, is, in some respects at least, the most beautifully located town in the county. It has 250 inhabitants, a magnificent hotel, a steam sawmill with a daily capacity of about 75,000 feet, while a larger one is soon to be built. It has a fine school and church, an intelligent and prosperous people, and bright hopes of being in the near future a rival of some of the now larger towns for commercial supremacy.

Aberdeen

Two and one-half miles below Cosmopolis on the north side of the bay, and where the waters of the Wishkah river are mingled with the waters of the harbor, is the town of Aberdeen with its six hundred in- habitants. At this place are lumber mills with an aggregate daily capacity of 150,000 feet. The citizens are energetic and enterprising, and have a good school and church, besides other institutions that denote culture and refinement. A weekly newspaper, the Aberdeen Herald , is published here.

Tour miles below Aberdeen on the same side of the bay, at a point where the gently flowing tide of the Hoquiam river flows into and becomes a part of the waters of Gray's Harbor, is situated the town of Hoquiam. At this place was erected the first steam sawmill in the county, and from this place was exported the first cargo of lumber. The mill has a daily output of 100,000 feet. Ship building is quite extensively and successfully carried on here. Here, too, is the most extensive general merchandise store in the county, if, indeed, it is not the most extensive in the Territory. Hoquiam has a population of 300 people, who are intelligent and law-abiding and possessed of pluck and enterprise. The familiar tones of the church bell call its people to a comfortable and beautiful building. The educational interests are well provided for. There are other in the county where the surveyor and draughtsman have done their part, and whose projectors are not without reasonable hopes of their some time assuming metropolitan style.

The climate of the county is mild and salubrious - thermometer never going above 950 in summer, nor below zero in winter. Blizzards, cyclones, drouths or disastrous floods are unknown. No poisonous vine, plant or reptile find a lodging place in the county; while the gently blowing breeze from the Pacific ocean dispels every vestige of miasma. Its rivers and bays teem with fish, and its wooded hills and valleys are the home of wild game. The already developed resources of the county are of sufficient magnitude to give it a commercial standing second to none in the Northwest, while its latent resources are of untold value. The fact that we are 300 miles nearer San Francisco (by sea) than the ports of Puget Sound, the ease and safety with which ships can enter our commodious harbor, together with our accessibility by railroad to Eastern Washington and Oregon renders it not at all improbable, that there are now living in our midst gray haired sires, who will live to see the golden grain of the Inland Empire seek a market in the ports of the world through the entrance to Gray's Harbor.

THURSTON County is bounded on the north by Puget Sound and that portion of it known as Dana Pass, the regularity of the coast line being broken by Henderson, Budd's Elb and Totten Inlets; its western, southern and eastern boundaries are respectively Chehalis, Eewis and Pierce counties. It is of irregular shape, contains an area of six hundred square miles, or three hundred and eighty-four thousand acres; has a population of about four thousand five hundred souls, and occupies nearly a central position in Western Washington.

It is needless to enlarge upon the climate of the county especially, in this place; it is much the same as other portions of Western Washington. The immigrant entering it now (the month of April) with remembrances of a foot of ice on their lakes and rivers in the east, will be astonished to see the forwardness of the season here. The surface of the country represents generally an expanse of gently rolling hills, near the Cascades attaining to the dignity of mountains, intersected by streams and diversified with prairie lands of considerable extent and ' exhaustless forests. The water-courses are the Des Chutes, the Nisqually (which divides the two counties of Pierce and Thurston), the Skookum-chuck, Scatter, Black and Chehalis with their tributaries, along whose banks are small valleys, flats and stretches of bottom land, where agriculture may be profitably carried on, and fruit and vegetables, hay and wheat raised in abundance. Indeed, grain grown in Thurston county took the premium at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, in 1876.

The entire area of the county in its natural state is wooded, with fir on the uplands and cedar, oak, maple, ash and alder on the level tracts and with this vast quantity of marketable timber at hand, with the superior advantages of wagon rogds, railroads and deep water in close proximity, the manufacture of lumber of which there is cut about nine million feet annually, becomes a leading industry of the county. Besides, a large quantity of timber is cut within its limits, made into rafts and towed by tug-boats along the placid waters of the Sound to different mills on its shores. For the various kinds of agriculture, these timber lands when cleared and brought into subjection, are equal, if not better, than any of the open tracts, and prove of great value, not only as wheat producing ground, but also for rearing live stock. On them are grown vegetables fruit and grass better than which is nowhere to be found.

During the year 1884-5 an aggregate of 50,000 bushels of grain was grown in Thurston county, while of live stock there were 15,000 head. The assessment roll foots up $2,075,496.

Geography And Topography

SNOHOMISH County has about 40 miles water frontage on Pu^tSbuncj and contains about 2500 square miles or 1,600,000 acres. It situated between King county on the south and Skagit county on the ho'rth; the Cascade mountains forming its eastern boundary. One- third of its area is mountainous, one-third is marvelously rich bottom and marsh land, and one-third is comparatively level upland, the soil of which is little less ie1^ tile than the bottoms - in fact, this class of lands produce a better 'quality of fruit and vegetables than the low-lands.

The mountains are rich in gold, silver, marble* £oal, irdh, copper and other minerals, but as yet little effort has been made 'develop these resources. The railroad company last summer located several claims on rich silver bearing leads, and will probably commence developing them this season. Placer mining is carried on to some extent; in nearly every stream placer gold has been found, while the Sultan river, a stream tributary to the Skykomish branch of the Snohomish river, and situated some 1 5 or 20 miles east of Snohomish, has yielded more gold during the past twenty years than has been found on all other Puget Sound streams put together. Nearly all the mountain land is covered with valuable timber, the finest fir and cedar the sun shines on. Over one-half of it is fertile and should the timber be removed, valuable for hay or pasture. The agricultural value of the upland will average about one-half that of the low land. Considering both soil and climate, one acre of marsh or bottom land here has a productive value equal to three acres of Iowa or Illinois prairie. Most of the upland is covered with the same kind of timber, which costs too much to pay for clearing it expressly for agricultural purposes. But forest fires annually burn over many thousand acres of such land, and there are also many thousand acres of old logging works, partly cleared, making excellent pasture, which now will pay to finish clearing for farming purposes. In the county, of these old burns and old logging works there are not less than 200,000 acres, partly cleared that will pay to improve for farming purposes. Of these fully 30,000 acres now furnish excellent pasturage nine months out of each year. With the increase of logging, and the extension of settlements, the amount will be doubled during the next five years, at the present rate of increase.

There are about 460,000 acres of surveyed land in the county, of which at least 200,000 acres have been taken under the homestead, preemption and timber land law. About 10,000 acres are under cultivation. The total number of acres of land assessed in Snohomish county in 1887, 172,287, valued at $71 1,942; the total valuation of all taxable property was $1,052,322 - an increase since 1885 of $372,576.

The most choice tracts of vacant agricultural land are to be found on the smaller streams, and around the numerous small lakes. Several experienced men are engaged in locating settlers. The tide marsh land at the delta of the Snohomish and Stillaguamish is all taken. This class of land is the richest and most productive in the world. Most of the large river bottoms and large marshes are taken, also the few small prairies, but equally as good land from one to five miles inland, within the same distance of roads, is still awaiting settlers.

Brush land can be cleared for from $10 to $20 per acre, and timber lands from $20 to $50, and in many places the timber will a great deal more than pay for the clearing. Many of the farmers of this county went into the woods and with little or no aid or money to commence with, built comfortable houses from the trees on the ground, cleared up a garden spot and raised enough produce to give a comfortable living the first year. Improved farming lands can be purchased for $20 to $75; unimproved, $2.50 to $20, according to character, location and distance from market.

Timber Bands

The most choice surveyed timber lands are taken, but occasionally a 40, 80 <*r 120 acre tract can be found joining that owned by the mill or logging companies. There is almost fabulous wealth in the vast tracts of unsurveyed timber land which will in time be thrown open to settlement. Timber claims of 160 acres, upon which there are from four to six million feet of fir and cedar, within one or two miles of a railroad or a stream large enough to "drive", sell at $1000 to $ 2000 . The purchase or location of a timber claim under the timber or pre-emption law, is one of the most profitable investments that can be made in this country. The southern part of the county and the northeastern part of King county is drained by the Snohomish river and its tributaries; while the Stillaguamish and its tributaries drain the northern part. (These Indian names are about the only drawback the county has, but they compare favorably with those of Maine.) The Snohomish and its main tributary (the Snoqualmie) are navigable for steamers a distance of about 45 miles; the Stillaquamish for about 10 miles. These streams, on which are the older and larger settlements, are at present the main outlets for the products of the county.

The Bellingham Bay and British Columbia railroad will pass through a portion of the county that is but thinly settled, and will make accessable large tracts of timber land, mostly owned by the loggers and big mill companies; also a large area of vacant agricultural land. The great drawback heretofore in developing the latent resources of the county has been the want of inter-communication; but this is being remedied by the opening of new roads, the improvement of old ones; and the building of the railroad.

son ever known in the lumbering districts of Puget Sound, there were 45 logging camps in operation in Snohomish county, their output aggregating 110,000,000 feet - the largest output of any county in Oregon or Washington. Last season prices of logs ranged from $5 to $7*5oper 1000. During the hard times of '78 prices went as low as $3.50. With a rapidly increasing foreign and local demand for lumber, the building of new mills, the purchase of large tracts of timber land and the building of railroads by eastern capitalists, together with the introduction of new and improved methods of logging, the opening of many new camps on an extensive scale; and last but not least, the perfection of an organization by the loggers, the prospects are unusually favorable "good times" this season.

The marketable timber of the county in quality and quantity, has no rivals, and consists of fir, many of the trees attaining a height of 300 feet and a diameter of six to ten feet on the stump; cedar trees often attain the same height, but have larger bodies - the diameter frequently exceeding fifteen feet. A stump of this size can be seen on the river bank a few rods below the mill, on which a party of five horsemen and seven men on foot ' 'posed' ' for a photograph last summer. Maple, alder and cottonwood reach large sizes and are used in the manufacture of furniture and boxes.

Stock Raising And Dairying

are two industries that are profitably engaged in here, and for which the county is naturally adapted. There is hardly a quarter section of land upon which cannot be found a spring or small stream of pure water. All kinds of grasses grow spontaneously and to the greatest perfection - especially clover and timothy, which grow green twelve months in the year. Two crops of clover and timothy mixed, or clover alone, are cut; those on the marshes, bottoms and rich uplands averaging about 3^2 tons to the first crop and 2^ tons the second. Farmers who keep stock generally, pasture after the first crop is cut. During the past four months, those who had hay to spare found ready sale at $22 to $27 a ton, to loggers. The price of hay usually averages about $12 a ton. Stock frequently run at large all winter, and come out in the spring looking as well as those which were kept up and fed. During the past )^ear, our farmers have been unable to supply even the local demand, and the butchers were compelled to to purchase several bands of cattle and sheep from Oregon and Eastern Washington. As will be seen by the The Eye' s market report, the price paid for mutton on foot is 4^ , beef 4 and pork 4 cents per pound. Butter and cheese are always in good demand at fair prices. Farmers are paying increased attention to the improvement of their stock by importing pure bred animals for breeding purposes. Work horses sell for $300 to $500 a span; oxen $200 to $400 a yoke, the latter price having been paid here last winter by a logger for a yoke of cattle girthing eight feet each; ponies, $40 to $100; common cows, $40 to $60.

Products And Prices

Fruit raising is another profitable branch of industry which our progressive farmers are engaging in more extensively than formerly, and the location of a cannery and dryer at some convenient point - Snohomish, for instance - by some one with capital, or by the fruit growers themselves, would be a profitable and successful enterprise. Among the numerous fruits most successfully raised here are apples, pears, plums, prunes and cherries in many varieties; strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, currents, etc. , which in size, quality and quantity to the acre, bushel or tree can not be equalled* by [any* (country] in the world; and with a little extra care, peaches and| grapes of the largest size and finest quality are raised. Blackberries, raspberries, currents and gooseberries will do as well as strawberries, if not better, upon our wild land. The usual prices the grower gets for plums, prunes and cherries range from 6 cents a pound when they first appear in .the market down to 2^ cents later in the season; peaches, 10 to

6 to 3 cents; apples and pears, 5 to i}4 cents a pound or $2 to 50 cents a bushel - the former price being paid for the earliest and latest in the market. These figures are obtained from dealers, and are reliable.

The productive capacity of the land is unequalled, the ordinary yield of wheat being 60 bushels, oats 100, and barley 80 bushels to the acre. One field of 10 acres on the tide flats yielded 134^ bushels of oats to the acre, last season. Corn is successfully raised but not in large quantities. Five hundred bushels of potatoes, of the finest quality to the acre, is not an uncommon yield, while all root crops and garden truck show a proportionate yield. Turnips ranging in weight from 20 to 35 pounds, and yielding 8 to 10 tons per acre, is no uncommon thing. Cabbages are often seen in our markets that will weigh from 30 to 40 pounds per head. Wheat has not as yet been cultivated on a large scale. Pumpkins and squash flourish; many of them often obtain the huge weight of 150 pounds. The sugar beet has been cultivated successfully in many parts of the county, and the establishment of a sugar factory in the near future at some central point is probable. The cultivation of hops is engaged in by several farmers, though not on an extensive scale as yet; 2000 pounds to the acre is a good average yield. Hop lice and other crop destroying insects are unknown here.

Experience has proven that with proper care bees are about as profitable "live stock" as can be kept on Puget Sound. The honey-producing plants and trees bloom early, and the bees often commence their season's work by the middle of February. The wholesale price of honey varies but little from 20 cents a pound in the comb.

With land of almost marvelous fertility, one acre of which will produce as much as four or five acres of the best land in the eastern and north- ern states; with no cyclones, blizzards, grasshoppers, drouths or disastrous floods to endanger or destroy life and property; and with a good demand and generally good prices for everything they raise, our farmers are prosperous and happy - and can our eastern readers wonder at it?

Opportunities For Business

The only manufactories in the county are: One fully equipped steam sawmill with a daily capacity of about 30,000 feet of lumber, and employing from 20 to 30 men - a feed mill is also attached; one water power sash, door and furniture factory, employing five men (these are located in Snohomish); one shingle mill at Edmonds, daily capacity 30,000. Another shingle mill is being built near Stanwood. Other mills will be opened along the railroad. There are fine opportunities here for the establishment of a brick kiln, a tannery, a wooden ware factory, a fruit cannery and dryer, starch and beet sugar factories. Raw material is cheap and abundant; home markets are good and transportation cheap aq,d convenient. There are several good water powers in the county that can be purchased cheap.

which - comprising the Swinomish, Skagit Delta and Samish Flats - is more or less tributary to EaConner, the principal commercial center of the county. The product is principally oats, probably over 20,000 tons per annum. This together with the logging output, some 55,000,000 or 60,- 000,000 feet, bring the people abundant ready cash - over a half million dollars annually. The farmers are generally prosperous and are branching out in diversified farming, increasing their stock for dairying. There is abundant iron, coal, granite and limestone throughout the county, chiefly up the Skagit, but capital has not yet taken hold of the development of these resources. The Skagit, coursing through the county, is the largest river emptying into Puget Sound, and is navigable for a distance of 80 miles. The county, is 24 by 100 miles in extent - from the Rosario Straits to the Cascade range, and being immediately in front of the Straits of Fuca is admirably situated for commerce. It has a number of productive islands on the western border, and taken altogether it may be said that Skagit county is one of the richest in agriculture, timber and elementary resources of any in the territory. Population about 5,000. This rich and rapidly developing county is immediately tributary to Tacoma, by a local corporation, which has been recently organized by Tacoma capitalists engaged in logging and merchandising on the Skagit river. There has been built at the Ship yard in Tacoma a steamer to run directly from Tacoma up the Skagit river, thus making the trade of this county directly tributary to Tacoma. This new steamer is one of the staunchest and fastest .on the Sound.

\ \ f HATCOM County, in the northwest corner of the territory, at the northern end of Puget Sound, extends southward from the British line about 25 miles, and eastward from Puget Sound about 80 miles, and therefore contains in the neighborhood of 2000 square miles. The eastern portion is mountainous, exceedingly picturesque, and heavily timbered with white pine, fir, cedar and spruce. In the western portion magnificent belts of fir and cedar alternate with extensive river bottoms of vine, maple and alder. Numerous lakes of Swiss picturesqueness, dot the county, chief among which is Take Whatcom, 12 miles long by 1 to 1% miles wide, with a depth in places of 400 feet, situated some three miles from Bellingham Bay, and having a surface elevation of about 300 feet above the bay level. The surplus waters of the lake flows through Whatcom creek to the city of Whatcom, located at its mouth, on Bellingham Bay, and furnish a majestic water power, capable of moving the enginery of scores of factories. A company is about to pipe the waters of the lake to Whatcom and other towns along the shores ot Bellingham Bay, having demonstrated the fact that with a fall of 300 feet a store of water is available of sufficient magnitude to supply the domestic and mechanical requirements of a city as large as Tondon. The lumber resources of the county are immense and comparatively untouched. The fir and cedar attain enormous dimensions. Three saw mills are now located upon Bellingham Bay, one at the town of Bellingham, having a capacity of 75,000 feet per day, and a Michigan company will soon commence the construction of another and larger one at New Whatcom, and will also construct a railroad to Take Whatcom, the timber round which, at a low estimate, amounts to 300,000,000 feet. The large acreage of river bottoms affords an excessively fertile region for agriculture. The alder and vine maple with which they are covered is easily cleared. All kinds of grass grow luxuriantly, and the alder bottom of one season becomes the pasture land and garden of the next. Roots and vegetables of every description attain a phenomenal size, and are unsurpassed in flavor and keeping qualities. Pre-eminently is Whatcom county the land of fruits and berries, the favorable conditions of climate and soil apparently charging the products of horticulture and the orchard with all the elements of perfect development. In the interior of the county along the numerous valleys of the Nooksack river and its tributaries, corn, peaches, and other products requiring warmer nights and a temperature of greater average height than that of the coast, mature readily and yield prolifieally. Tobacco of a superior quality is successfully grown. Stock thrives upon the plentiful grass and clovers indigenous to soil. Poultry is remarkably free from diseases usually preying upon domestic fowls. Fish and game are abundant. Fine large salmon have sold on Bellingham Bay during the last season for from three to ten cents each. The streams and lakes swarm with trout. Along the shores of the bay salmon trout of delicious flavor are plentiful. Cod in numerous varieties, flounders, and other salt water fish are not only abundant, but very cheap. Oysters are plentiful ; while clams, crabs and mussels can be had by the cart load. Dogfish are exceedingly abundant, and are caught in great numbers for their oil. At Point Roberts, at the northwestern corner of the county, is probably the best 'salmon fishing station in the entire northwest. Deer are killed in great numbers which makes the business a butchery. Grouse and pheasant abound in the woods. Geese and ducks in astonishing numbers cover the waters of Bellingham Bay during the winter season. Elk are found in the eastern part of the county, while the bear and cougar lurk in the deeper recesses of the forest.

The mineral deposits of the county consist chiefly of iron and coal, the former as yet undeveloped. Vast deposits of bog-iron ore exist in the northern part of the county. Extensive coal beds have been found in various localities in the vicinity of Take Whatcom, and have been developed enough to prove the existence of practically inexhaustible veins of an excellent quality of bituminous coal. Gold has been discovered along the Upper Nooksack and its tributaries, but the early fall rains have interrupted the work of the miners before the extent of the deposits could be ascertained. The Chuckanut Bay sandstone of this county is justly celebrated as an elegant and durable building material. The incorporated city of Whatcom is the county seat, situated on Bellingham Bay a magnificent landlocked body of water six miles in length by three in width, furnishing an absolutely safe anchorage and harborage for the largest vessels. The. Bellingham Bay and British Columbia Railroad, about two miles of which is completed from New Whatcom, will eventually connect that point and the lines of traffic centering at the bay with the Canadian Pacific. Settlement has steadily progressed during the past few years, and the county is becoming populous with a strong, vigorous and energetic class of men. The climate of Whatcom county, and especially at Bellingham Bay, is admirable. The rainfall is not excessive ; there are no moss-covered roofs. An agreeable temperature prevails. Puget Sound, upon its western shore has a wonderfully equalizing influence upon the climate. The waters of this vast Mediterranean of the north are ever ebbing and flowing to and from the sea. Colder than the surrounding atmosphere under the vertical rays of the sun, they absorb its heat and moderate the warmth of midsum- mer, while the genial Japan current, which finds its way through the Straits of Fuca and to the shores of Bellingham Bay, constantly parting with its surplus caloric during the colder months, tempers the rigors of midwinter. These and other exceptional circumstances, undoubtedly make the western part of Whatcom county one of the favored localities of the globe.

THE country more immediately tributary to the city of North Yakima, consisting of valleys of the Moxee, Konnewock, Ahtanum, Natchez Coweetchie, Wenas, and Selah, and the magnificent Yakima Indian Reservation, forms a body of land, which for agricultural possibilities cannot be excelled in America.

The growing season is long, warm and steady. Irrigation is necessary and the supply of water is abundant. The soil is very rich indeed, and fertilizers are not required, nor will they be for a generation. The rich riyer water conducted on the land by irrigating ditches, deposits all its wealth on the soil and is a never-ending source of renewed life. Fed from the melting snows of the mountains, the rivers and streams are highest just when their water is of most value to the farmer, and they are as reliable as the laws of nature and the fiat of Divinity.

Capital is rapidly flowing into the country, and splendid ditches and irrigating systems are being constructed every year. The irrigation works of the Moxee Company, four miles from Yakima, are perhaps the most nearly perfect north of California.

A company has been formed of Tacoma and Eastern capitalists for the construction of an irrigating canal, seventy-five miles long. This canal has its head at the gap in the Rattlesnake hills south of Yakima, and will water several hundred thousand acres of most desirable farming lands.

The water power of the Natchez river, from the painted rocks to the City of Yakima, about four miles, is leaping down its forty-feet-to-themile grade, rejoicing in its strength and calling in tones too clear to remain longer unheard, for the factories, which will enable it to bend its eternally youthful energies to the service of man.

The town of Yakima itself, is, as inevitably as its topography is fixed, one of the leading railroad centres, if not the leading railroad centre of the Northwest. The Northern Pacific Railroad already runs through its well-ditched and tree-fringed streets. All the best mountain passes open westward from its surrounding valleys, and eastward to the great wheat belt of the Columbia. The Yakima and Salmon River Mines stage goes over a road, the steepest grade of which is twenty-five feet to the mile, and over which a Central Park turnout could be driven without disturbing the profound repose of its fair occupants. It is, however, as an agricultural ^country, that Yakima County has attracted most attention so far. It is no exaggeration to say that almost everything is grown in this peculiarly favored spot, from corn and potatoes to grapes, peaches, peanuts, tobacco, hops, and even cotton. Over fifty bushels of wheat and ninety bushels of *oats have been raised to the acre, but the leading grain is perhaps barley, to the growth of which the conditions of soil and climate seem peculiarly adapted. Hops have made every farmer who has staid with them well-todo. Hitherto the hop hills in this district have been set eight feet apart, and the yield per acre has been from fifteen to eighteen hundred pounds. With the six and a half feet measurement lately introduced, the yield per acre should not fall short of two thousand to twenty-four hundred pounds per acre. It costs eight cents a pound to raise hops and bale them ready for market, and the average price obtained for the past ten years has been eighteen cents a pound. Take even last year's price (thirteen cents) and a profit of five cents a pound is left, which at the low yield of fifteen hundred pounds an acre, gives a profit of seventy-five dollars per acre. The hops of the Yakima Valley have taken the very first place in the market. The reason of this is, that, owing to irrigation, the exact amount of water required by the vines can be given to them just when it will do most good.

Timothy hay which grows on the bottom lands without irrigation, sell on the Sound city markets for from twenty to thirty dollars per ton. It still costs $3.00 a ton to bale, and $4.50 to ship hay to the Sound, or $7.50 (exclusive of hauling) from stack to market.

Alfalfa or Tucern clover, the king of forage plants, is slowly covering the fields of Yakima County with his royally magnificent mantle of promise. Three crops can be cut in the year, but the third crop is seldom cut, the farmers generally leaving it for pasture. From two crops five tons to the acre are easily obtainable. Alfalfa, unbaled, sold last year in Yakima for $8 to $10 a ton, and the demand exhausted the supply before the season was half over.

Amid its many resources, Yakima County has perhaps none more valuable than alfalfa. With a little corn or barley to make the flesh firm, although this is not necessary, it is the prime feed for hogs and cattle, and will yield a steady return per acre which any farmer can calculate for himself. -

These are not exaggerated statements, but, a few plain facts in the experience of thousands, -and more particularly of one who heard a voice in the East from the West singing the sypen SOn g of unsurpassed fertility. He feared that distance had mellow and lent enchantment to the song, but he came, and bears his testimony that the half\ia.s not been told.

IZ ITTITAS County by reason of its multiplicity of resources and indus- V tries, is known as the ' 'Banner County of Washington Territory. It lies in the geographical center of the Territory, contains 3600 square miles and between 8000 and 10,000 inhabitants. It is bounded 011 the west by the summit line of the Cascade range of mountains, and by the Columbia river on the east. Its area is nearly equally divided into three distinct parts, viz. : The western portion is occupied by heavy forests of pine, fir, -and cedar.

The central portion, or Kittitas Valley, is devoted to agriculture, and the eastern portion bordering on the Columbia river is grazing lands and stock range. The western portion of the county is underlaid with immense beds of No. 1 bituminous coal and deposits of sematite and magnetic iron ore. Also gold, silver, copper and other metals are found in the Cascade range.

The Kittitas Valley lies in the center of the county and is 15 by 30 miles in area. It is prairie land surrounded by the foot-hills of the Cascade range, two sides of which are covered with timber. Through the ^center of the valley the Yakima river runs, whilst scores of smaller streams course their way down through the valley from the adjacent foothills. These streams are fed by the snows and are as pure as crystal and furnishes water for irrigation to all parts of the valley. Kittitas Valley is the best watered valley on the Pacific coast east of the Cascade range. About one-fourth of the valley is under cultivation.

The principal productions of the valley are wheat, oats, barley, hay, vegetables of all kinds, horses, sheep, cattle and hogs. From 30 to 50 bushels of wheat are produced per acre; 40 to 80 bushels of barley; from 40 to 60 of oats and 300 to 500 bushels of potatoes.

The Cascade division of the N. P. R. R., enters the southeast portion of the county and traverses its entire length in a northwesterly direction. Our market is Tacoma on the west, and Minneapolis, St. Paul and Chicago on the east.

Kittitas Valley is the home of the agriculturalist, the stockman, the manufacturer, the lumberman, the miner, the coal baron and the iron king.

The climate of Kittitas County is semi-oceanic. Fllensburgh, the metropolis of the Inland Empire, is situated only 125 miles from salt water, hence the county naturally shares the mild temperature of the ocean. The mean temperature being 730 in summer and 340 in winter. The average winter does not last over six weeks to two months and is dry with a moderate depth of snow; sleighing often lasting three or four weeks. Winter generally begins from the 1st to the 15th of December and breaks from the 1st to the 15th of February. Farmers frequently plow here in December and often in January. After the 15th of February, stockmen can safely turn their herds on the range, as from that time on, the warm winds from the ocean cut the snows so that stock improves rapidly. Many stockmen take the chances of allowing their stock to run on the range the entire year.

No cyclone or blizzard has ever visited the county, and since its first settlement, such things have not been known. The conditions and topography of the county are such, owing to the temperizing influence of the ocean and a vast mountain range, to render such a phenomena as blizzards, cyclones or tornadoes utterly impossible. Owing to the ocean and this range of mountains, we never have protracted "heated terms," as the nights are always cool; so much so, that a pair of blankets are quite comfortable in July or August.

Fruit

All of the hardy varieties of fruit do well here and are of excellent flavor and quality. A number of orchards are in full bearing. While small fruits, such as currents, gooseberries and strawberries are in their natural climate. In the northeastern portion of the county, in the Wenatchee Valley, excellent peaches, No. 1 com and sweet potatoes grow to perfection and in abundance. More attention is given each succeeding year to the planting of trees.

Another fact should be mentioned, that here we have no pests such as the chintz or potato bug, the grasshopper, the Russian fly the cenculis, the peach borer or any of the destructive pests known to the eastern states.

(pOWI^lTZ County, situated in the southwestern portion of Washington ^ Territory, bordering as it does on the great Columbia river for a distance of about forty miles and having an area of over four hundred square miles; is well adapted to agricultural, manufacturing, lumbering and mining purposes. Also a great deal of attention is paid to fruit raising, which has proved Cowlitz County to be one of the finest fruit growing sections in Washington Territory.

Agricultural Lands

The land principally adapted to agricultural purposes is the land known as ' 'fir timber' ' land, which soil will produce in abundance wheat, potatoes, oats, barley, etc. The "fir timber" land is also the most profitable for fruit growing. The timothy and clover, the latter being best adapted to the high land and the former in the swails or ash lands; but neither does very well on the high lands.

Pasture Lands

The Columbia bottoms are the principal part of the settled portion of the county, and its production is stock, butter and hay. The hay raised -on the bottom land is most red-top which sells readily at from $10 to $15 per ton when baled. This grass crop never fails, notwithstanding in most cases it is pastured all winter, which is about three months out of the year. This scope of bottom land embraces the entire strip along the Columbia through the entire length of the county.

The farmers in the Tewis and Cowlitz river bottoms most all find a ready market for their milk at the Woodland and Freeport creameries, which pays them better to sell their milk than to manufacture it into butter themselves. The Woodland creamery manufacturing into butter the milk from 200 cows, and Freeport about 350 cows - consuming in the two localities the milk from 550 milch cows, which adds materially to the finances of the county.

Timber Lands

The timber consists of fir, spruce, cedar and ash and in inexhaustible quantities. The fir and spruce are mostly cut on the small rivers or creeks, and floated out to the tide water during the winter freshets which comes regularly as the rainy season comes around. There are millions of feet of fir and spruce floated out each year, which is mostly sold to the mills of Portland, with the exception of what is consumed by the mills supplying the local trade of the county. The cedar is manufactured into shingles by the numerous shingle mills of the county, and are shipped to different paints. The ash and small fir are manufactured into cordwood which is a ready sale at all times of the year. All this land is the finest of agricultural land after the timber is removed; thus in clearing off the timber, the price obtained for the shingles, logs and wood, pays the expense of improving the land for farming purposes. There are thousands of acres of these timber lands still vacant in the county.

The Towns

The towns in this county are all beautifully situated. The town of Kalama is situated on the Columbia river, between the Kalama and Lewis rivers, and about seventy-five miles from the Pacific from which we receivea constant breeze, making it a very healthy location. There is no bettershipping point in Washington Territory than is Kalama. Freeport and Kelso, situated opposite each other on the Cowlitz river are surrounded by fine farming country, and are flourishing little towns. Castle rock is situated about 20 miles north of Kalama on the Cowlitz river, and is a, thriving little town, but like Kelso is building up very rapidly. The- Northern Pacific railroad passes through all these towns except Freeport..

FRANKLIN County, looking from a commercial stand-point, is the great center of the Inland Empire, situated as it is in the south central part of eastern Washington Territory, and embracing a total area of 737,280- acres of land. Its altitude is the lowest of the Columbia valley, being only from 337 to 1,000 feet, the mean being only about 600 feet above the level of the sea, while the average altitude of the surrounding counties is not lessthan 1 , 500 feet, thus giving this county a decided advantage in climate.

Pasco, the county seat, is the nearest point on the Columbia river to Puget Sound, by the Northern Pacific Railroad, and is the nearest point, on Snake river to Portland, Oregon, by way of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, and branch of the Northern Pacific- railway.

This is a feature we can boast of and against which but little can be said. Spring commences in the early part of February,, generally. During the spring and early part of the summer we have occasional showers. Summers are long and warm, but the nights are always cool enough to sleep comfortably under a pair of blankets. We have no mosquitoes or gnats to trouble man or beast. The seasons between frost for the years 1882-3-4 and 5, averaged six months and two days.. Our winters are short; seldom more than four or five weeks. Snow fall is from five to eighteen inches, average duration about twenty days,, when it is compelled to give way under the genial influence of the "Chinook" wind. In the spring and summer we have occasional windlS From a westerly direction, but they are light as compared with the winds of the middle and western states. Cyclones, blizzards and tornadoes are unknown.

Our soil is of two classes, known here as the bunch grass and sage brush lands, being a light brownish sandy loam, of which the bunch grass land is a finer composition, more compact and comprises about two-thirds of the total area of the county, covering the eastern portion, while that of the western part is sagebrush land.

All cereals are practically grown without irrigation, of which wheat, corn and barley are excellent both in quantity as well as quality. The sage brush lands are especially adapted to fruit raising. The home of the grape. Also, the more tender varieties of vegetables, such as melons, sweet-potatoes and tomatoes, as well as of tobacoo.

Stock

Stock horses and cattle on the range are not fed during the winter. Good beef can be secured the year around from the range. There are several thousand head in this county of both horses and cattle,

Shipping Facilities

Our shipping and marketing facilities are superior to that of any county in this part of the Territory, in fact cannot be excelled. Snake river, bounding us for fifty-five miles on the east and south, is navigable for three hundred miles, and is plied by steamboats at all seasons, from Lewiston down. The Columbia river, bounding us on the south and west for 42 miles, is navigable to the Ocean, save the portages at the Dalles and Cascades, both of which will soon be overcome so that; then we will have direct communication by water as well as by rail to the ocean market. The country adjacent to the Columbia river above, has not until within the last year offered inducements sufficient to justify navigation, but capitalists are now arranging for placing a line of steamboats on the river (two of which are now being built at Pasco) to open navigation to the great Salmon river mines, as well as the hundreds of thousands of acres of fine agricultural lands. The products of all of this must come to Pasco. This move will of course cause the river to be supplied with steamers connecting the Canadian system of railway with this point, only 700 miles separating them, though, connected by navigable waters gives to this point a significance that no other point has. No part of our county is more than about fifteen miles from rail or water transportation, thus giving it advantages that can not well be had in any other county. For persons in poor health and especially lung diseases, our climate cannot be excelled.

Last year our assessment was about $140,000. This year it is about one million and perhaps a little more. The assessment is not yet completed. A part of this difference is caused by the repeal of the gross earnings law, though our county is settling up fast as well as improving. It would be hard to estimate the amount or anything like it that is to be placed in this county during the present year. We think we would be safe in saying from one to two million dollars.

The Northern Pacific Railroad Company are making extensive improvements, as well as the county rapidly settling up ; families and also colonies are coming from different parts of the United States to this place.

When you come to Washington Territory, stop at Pasco, and let us show you what we have and tell you of our inducements offered to newcomers. Do not mind the sage brush, it is easily removed. Our county is out of debt and prosperous. Our taxes 12^2 mills only last year. Our health unequaled except op the Pacific.

If you wish to buy lands, enquire for the editor of the Pasco Headlight , J. N. Muncy, and he will do all he can to show of the advantages here. There are many. We want some lumbering men here to build mills, also every other kind of manufacturing has advantages here offered ; direct rail communications with Tacoma, Portland, Walla Walla and the Bast, in fact this is the commercial center, having the best advantage of the Northwest. - From Pasco Headlight.

THIS county contains 2500 square miles and is generally regarded as one of the finest agricultural portions of Washington Territory. The greater portion of it is wheat land, the soil consisting of a dark rich loam of from eighteen to thirty inches in depth, composed of alluvial deposits and decomposed vegetable matter, together with a slight admixture of decomposed lava. Underlying this is a subsoil of clay. This soil is exceedingly prolific, and the grazing lands are such that Lincoln County has considerable prominence as a stock growing county. It is bounded on the east by Spokane County, on the west by Douglas County, on the north by the Columbia and Spokane rivers, and on the south by Adams and Whitman Counties; and as will be seen by consulting the map, includes the better portion of the famous Big Bend country, about which so much has been written by tourists and correspondents. The Big Bend is unquestionably one of the finest agricultural regions in the world. Lincoln County was organized in November, 1883. At that time there were only 2500 inhabitants. There are now over 6000, as shown by the assessor's returns. The assessed valuation of property is stated as $2,346,570. The total value of school houses, $15,000. Number of school children, 2740. A new court house of modest proportions and small cost is now in course of erection.

Sprague, the county seat, is a thriving town of 1500 inhabitants. It is located in the southeastern portion of the county, on the line of the Northern Pacific Railway. The headquarters of the Idaho division of the road are permanently located here, with the machine shops and car shops. All trains passing through either way halt here half an hour. Sprague is well located for a trade center and shipping point, and is destined to become a place of considerable importance as an inland commercial center. Targe numbers of horses, cattle, hogs and sheep are brought here for shipment to the east and to Portland, Oregon, from the adjoining counties of Whitman, Spokane, Adams and Douglas.

There are plenty of vacant government lands, and quite desirable, within a short distance of market points for the sale of produce and stock, subject to entry under the land laws. There are a great many fine tracts of railroad land still within easy reach, at from $3.50 to $5 per acre. This can be bought on long time at a low rate of interest.

FROM the information given in the preceding pages concerning Tacoma and Washington Territory, it will appear that there are portions of Washington Territory which can offer to Eastern investors in real estate mortgages as safe securities as any other portion of the United States.

Scarcity of money has been incident in the development of all our Western Territory. In the early days of all our Western States, the great demand for money coupled with the insufficiency of fhe supply caused the rates of interest to rule high. As the country developed, and as the supply of money from the East increased, the rates of interest, following the law of "supply and demand," gradually diminished.

Washington Territory is not an exception to the experience of Kansas, Nebraska, Dakota and other western sections of the country. Two and three years ago we were able here to obtain ten and twelve per cent, per annum on real estate mortgage loans, running from three to five years. During the past two years the immigration to this country has increased rapidly, and added materially to the circulation of money here. The crops generally throughout the Territory this past year have brought good prices. The hop fields of Puget Sound have yielded this past year on an average two thousand pounds to the acre, and the crop has sold at from 25 cents to 33 cents per pound. This alone has added to the circulation here five hundred thousand dollars. In addition to this, a large amount of Eastern capital has sought and found investment here through various loaning agencies, and this influx of money has naturally reduced the rate of interest on long time real estate loans. In February of last year (1887) the Merchants National Bank of this city reduced its rates of interest to 10 per cent, on short time loans, and the other banks of this city immediately followed its example.

This being the case , I can no longer assure to my Eastei n patrons a ten per cent, rate on five year loans , as heretofore , but can only pyomise to get the best 7 ate obtainable, on unquestionably good security. This rate of interest is 9 per cent., and the time for which the loan will run will be from three to five years.

UntiL recently I have invariably made the interest payments on all loans semi-annual, but with farmers especially, the payment of interest semi-annually is objectionable, as their chief income is in the Fall. Where the borrowers do not positively object, I make the interest payments semiannual.

The attention of eastern investors is called to the fact that in Washington territory non-resident mortgagees are exempt from taxation. This exemption is probably owing to the fact that while the territory is young and rapidly growing the investment of eastern capital is courted to assist in the general development of the various resources of the territory.

There is no usury law in Washington territory; section 2369 of the code of the territory makes any rate of interest agreed upon by parties to a contract, specifying the same in writing, legal and valid. The laws for the protection of mortgagees in Washington territory are fully as favorable as those to be found in any state of the Union. The legislature of the territory in 1886, passed a law that the judgment debtor or his successor in interest may redeem any real estate held under execution of judgment or foreclosure of mortgage, at any time within one year from the date of the sale by paying the amount of purchase money, with interest at the rate of one per cent, per month thereon from the date of sale, together with the amount of any taxes which the purchaser may have paid.

The coupon interest notes should be paid at my office or at the Tacoma National Bank for collection a few days before the same are due. Asa 7ule bo?rowe?s insist on having their coupons surrendered when they pay their interest.

On all loans in Pierce county, I examine the public records in the Auditor's office as to the title to the property myself, and with all loans in other counties I require a complete abstract of title to the property, or the County Auditor's [Recorder's] certificate that the title to the property

I give my personal attention to the execution of the papers in every loan I make in Pierce county, and the mortgage, after being properly recorded in the Auditor's office, and all of the papers with the loan, are sent to the loaner as soon as possible after the loan is closed.

My loans in other counties than Pierce county are made through agents with whom I am personally acquainted and on securities that are approved by responsible parties before the loans are closed.

The mortgagee's interest in every security so far as payment of taxes, insurance and assessments are concerned, is looked after as carefully by myself and agents as if the mortgagee were here personally to do this for himself.

My mortgages are so worded and notes so drawn that a default in the payment of interest makes the whole sum of principal and interest fall due and payable at the option of the mortgagee, and on all coupon interest notes I make the penalty for non-payment of interest, two per cent, per month. This operates as a potent persuader for promptness. Interest payments are always collected and remitted to the mortgagee without expense or charge to him.

My business here is done through the Tacoma National Bank, to which bank remittances may be made direct, with instructions that the same are to be loaned by me on such real estate as the bank will approve as safe, conservative security. In this way the non-resident loaner may be assured that his loans are absolutely safe.

Principal and interest on all of my loans are made payable at the Tacoma National Bank, with New York exchange. In case of my death the collection of principal and interest on any loan can be made through that Bank.

The distance of our locality from you being so great as to require several days for the transmission of letters, and realizing the fact that it is to the interest of my eastern clients as well as to my own interest to have a system by which we can communicate with each other by telegraph as cheaply as possible, the following key is given which can be used in communicating with me:

In most cases where parties in the east telegraph me the day the draft is sent and the amount, I can arrange here so that not a days's interest shall be lost.

As our Territory develops, other avenues for investment than real estate loans are presenting themselves, and among these may be mentioned^ city and county warrants, school warrants, water and gas works bonds, etc., etc. In many cases these run for a period of years and at rates of interest equal to that obtainable on real estate loans.

Tacoma, The Sound City

Strange Coincidence in the Location of Tacoma and one of Iowa's Thriving Cities. - The Wisdom of Gen. McCarver's Second Selection Apparent to the Visitor to Tacoma. - Her Harbor Conceded to be Unsurpassed on Either the Ateantic or Pacific. - To the East, Majestic Mountains that Rear Their Peaks High Heavenward. - Fed by a Remarkably Rich Agricueturae and Minerae District. - A City of Cities. - Tacoma, a City But Fourteen Years Oed, With a Present and Assured Future Seedom Equaeed. - Naturae Advantages by Location. - Shipping Facieities.

\ rarely build their own monuments, and it is still more rare when they are built in miles upon miles of massive blocks of business houses, or greater distances in stately and attractive homes. It is singularly strange that one man should leave two monuments in the existence of two thriving cities - yet the man who located the town sites of Tacoma, Washington Territory, and Burlington, Iowa Territory, builded better than he knew. These two cities were located b}^ Gen. M. M. McCarver. There is a coincidence in the earlier history of these two cities that would seem to have been a good omen. Destiny had carved out for the bustling metropolis on the Mississippi a promising future, the consumation of which is in the existence of a city with over thirty thousand people developed solely through agriculture and its kindred resources. And destiny will Carve out for Tacoma a future, now so rapidly appearing, in which the population will be multiplied many times over that of the city that Gen. Mc- Carver first located. Back in the early thirties, while Iowa was still a territory, Gen. McCarver was selected to locate the site of a town on the Mississippi river. Night overtook him some five miles from the present city of Burlington, and the sparse settlements in those early days gave him shelter on that night in a little log cabin: During this night, in this cabin, a baby boy was born, and when the general bade farewell to the little household to locate the city of Burlington, he little dreamed that the baby boy he left on the Iowa prairie would be encountered in after life,

The general drifted to California and thence to Oregon, being prominently identified with the early history of these two states. About seventeen years ago, Gen. McCarver was again selected to traverse the shores of Puget Sound to locate a town. His protege, the city on the Mississippi, had in its growth and development, established his wisdom in the selection of a proper location, and hence his employment by his own syndicate for this new mission. After traveling along the shores of the Sound, night again overtook him, when he found shelter in the only cabin then in this immediate neighborhood. The coincidence and good omen came to the surface in the discovery of the fact that the owner of the cabin, then located immediately back of the bay from where old Tacoma now is, was the identical baby boy born on the morning of the day that Burlington, Iowa, was located. It seemed to Gen. McCarver, who taking the event as indicative of good, immediately made the location of Tacoma, truly the city of destiny. Gen. Mc- Carver and his new found friend, the man of Iowa birth, have passed away ere either could witness the fulfillment of their hopes in the growth of the then new town of Tacoma. Were the general living, he would see a city whose future greatness is beyond all human computation. This greatness is already assured, located as Tacoma is on Commencement Bay in Puget Sound, with a harbor so perfect and so completely a refuge for all ocean craft, neither science, art nor money could have built it better or more safely. The water course from the wharves of this city out through the straits of Juan de Fuca to Cape Flattery is from twenty to one hundred fathoms deep, making perfect and unobstructed sailing, enabling the largest craft or steamer - even the Great Eastern - to sail right up to the wharves of this city. The superior to Tacoma in accessible navigation is hardly to be found on the Atlantic or Pacific coast. Resting safe on this harbor, free from the dangers of a rugged coast, yet enjoying the salt water breezes with their health-giving, invigorating qualities, is this truly more than wonderful city, whose inhabitants have but to step from wharves ovei; gang planks aboard of the largest vessel that can float in any water in the known world, and the vessel can steam out or sail majestically without tug, encountering neither bar, reef, nor rocks, into the great Pacific ocean. As for scenery, there is no place more gifted. Off to the east, just sixty miles away, stands the majestic mountain that rears its lofty head toward the skies to the distance of nearly 15,000 feet, the grandest of all peaks in the Cascade range. It seems to pose like a royal sentinel, its gorgeous beauty tinted at times in prismatic hues and standing boldly outlined, piercing its mighty top through the clouds in seeming disdainful defiance to all save the God who made it. So grand and imposing is this Mount Tacoma that the observer views it in amazement, his soul filling with the thoughts of the majesty of the being who placed this wondrous mountain, mantled forever in snow, in the midst of a country so plenteous, and in an atmosphere so clear that the vision is deceived in the belief that (though sixty miles away) one might with outstretched arms almost touch its crest. Mount Tacoma, by its mightiness, presents to the eye a world of wondrous beauty, and it proves the utter fallacy of Americans going abroad to witness scenes of majestic greatness or mountain loveliness. Here is a mountain whose massive crest is an eternal glacier, which, under the heat of a genial sun and the warm, gentle zephyrs of melts into streams of waters to enrich the beautiful and productive valleys below. These streams of melted snow and ice course through the channels that time has marked for them, until they reach the mighty Pacific ocean, resting at the base of Mount Tacoma. Nature has been lavish to this section, of which Tacoma is the great commercial center. To the eastward is the great range of the Cascade mountains, at whose feet rest the fertile valleys of the Yakima. These valleys, so rich in deep alluvial soil, watered by plenteous and never-failing streams whose sources are found high up in the Cascades, are thus assured eternal moistures for precedent yields in cereals and all agricultural products which will find the markets of the world through the great Cascade tunnel of the Northern Pacific, thence by the waters of Puget Sound out into the ocean. In these ranges of the Cascades, or tributary lands, are found inexhaustible mines of coal, iron and even precious metals. Not even Pennsylvania is so favored, for in the canyons of the ranges, by tunnelling into the mountain side from the very surface of the ground, magnificent bituminous coal is found, which makes a coke, the superior of British coke. Above the coal great mountains of iron exist, of a quality that makes steel rails. Ordinary chutes drop the iron to the coal; no shafting, no hoisting nor massive machinery are required. All over these mountains and running down to the shores of the bay are massive forests, with trees so large and tall that the greatest ship that ever sailed carries no timber that could not be duplicated here. And the abundance of coal, iron and lumber is past calculation - enough to support a city whose population could be larger than the combined cities in America. Neither has nature stopped here - she has given this country a climate so mild that a day has never yet been seen during which outdoor work could not be done without even the possibility of suffering. Added to all of this, the fish food of these waters, if utilized, would feed the continent, and all this is the foundation of Tacoma, a city with possibilities before her greater than any other city in America ever had at a parallel age. This advantage, gained by the wonderful facilities of the present day, which facilities did not exist when such cities as New York, Chicago and Pittsburg were only fourteen years old.

Whence Her Greatness

To the man who has watched the development of the great Northwest, the growth of western towns is no marvel. The same man can readily see, when the facts are placed before him, why the city of Tacoma is to become a very great city. There is no city on the American continent that can rightfully be compared to this city in its past, present or future possibilities. In the start, let the prophecy be recorded that the now fastapproaching great growth of this city will outstrip the marvelous record of any city extant, not excepting Minneapolis and St. Paul, Kansas City, Omaha or Denver. The immediate feature of Tacoma, however, promises greater than the realization of Kansas City, Omaha or Denver, and it is destined to equal the present proportions of St. Paul and Minneapolis. The reason for this prediction may here be set forth. First, the Northern Pacific railway is an enormous corporation, the main transcontinental and great trunk line in America - the only corporation running thousands of miles through a country that, in sections or its entirety, is capable of some form of product to support and maintain a railway. The great Pennsylvania line was fostered, nourished and really built by the one state of Pennsylvania, its chief original earnings coming from the mineral products of that state. The Northern Pacific started with a gift in land that made it wealthy. It goes through one great state and four great territories. It commences normally on the great lakes and ends on Puget Sound (or the Pacific ocean) at Tacoma, this city having easier, less expensive and nearer great sea- trading centers than San Francisco or Portland. In 1873, in compliance with the requirements of its charter, the Northern Pacific appointed a competent, conservative and intelligent commission to make the location of its terminus, somewhere on Puget Sound. The report of that commission culminated in a full meeting of the directory of the Northern Pacific, Sept. 10, 1873, as per the following resolution:

Resolved , That the Northern Pacific Railroad Company locate and construct its main road to a point on Puget Sound on the southerly side of Commencement Bay, in town 21, north of range 3 east of Willamette meridian, and within the limits of the city of Tacoma, which point in the said city of Tacoma is declared to be the western terminus of the main line of the Northern Pacific.

Here then is the foundation stone of Tacoma, and what Gen. McCarver discovered the Northern Pacific has made. The casual reader may not discern any import in the fact that a great railroad has selected a city for its terminus, but let us see its significance. Somewhere in Western Dakota or Eastern Montana, all other things being equal, will be the dividing line of this road. All products raised to the east of this line must find a market and outlet by way of Duluth; all products to the west of that line must find a market

Via The Pacific Ocean

It is conceded by the result of test that all the states and territories through which the Northern Pacific passes, raise a hundred, yes thousand fold more (or can,) in products than it can consume, and these must have a market. Now which city is the key to the greatest and most easily accessible market - Duluth or Tacoma? The first has the eventual final market of Europe, via Chicago and Buffalo for all surplus or unconsumed products. Tacoma has identically the same market at actually less cost to reach it than via Duluth. When the statement is made that there are vast exports sent from this port, it will either arouse the credulity of some readers or amaze them. Here are the figures for Puget Sound as compiled at Port Townsend, the port of entry, and it is gathered as shown for 1885, 1886 and 1887, the increase in 1887 over 1885 being over six million dollars. three years' shipments.

Eumber And Wheat Shipments

Of the cargoes sent to foreign ports, 40 were in American vessels, 30 in British, 23 in Norwegian, 7 in Swedish, 6 in Chilian, 5 in German, 2 in Hawaiian and 1 in Nicaraguan. The freight money received in transporting the lumber averaged $12 per 1000 feet, amounting to $860,328. Three hundred and seventy-seven cargoes of lumber were sent in American vessels to coastwise ports, amounting to 257,689,438 feet, valued at $3,349,957. The freight money received for transportation averaged $6 per 1000 feet, amounting to $1,289,445.

1885 are given herewith - the shipments above covering cargoes sent out in 1887, the following list having been taken from shipping records at the wharves in Tacoma, as follows:

Distributed to the following foreign countries: Chili, Peru, Bolivia, Argentine Republic, Uruguay, Mexico, United States of Columbia, Norway, England, Ireland, British possessions in Australia, New Caledonia, Hawaiian Islands, British Columbia, China and Japan.

From the above, the reader is left to his own conjectures as to the possibilities of Tacoma, as he notes that this city has the market of the world before it; but for his further enlightment he must consider that the expense of pulling heavy trains by the way of the ' 'switch back' ' across the Cascade mountains naturally deters shipments, and it must also be remembered that even the "switchback" track has not been in existence long.

This fact will explain why, as yet, but little of this export has been received from east of the mountains, the increase in exports of 1887 over

1886 coming partly from the railway traffic over the switchback. In other words, the furthest east that exports have been received is from Spokane Falls. The great tunnel through the Cascade mountains, which the Northern Pacific will have finished by June 1, at the furthest, possibly twenty days sooner, will be the cause of doubling the exports for 1888. Another important fact is that Eastern Washington is now filling up in its agricultural districts as rapidly as Dakota ever augmented its population. The same applies to the Big Bend countries, the Yakima and Kittitas valleys and the long stretch of agricultural land in the Palouse country, all east of the Cascades.

This Increased Popueation

will treble the increase of acreage employed. The most startling, yet true, statement is that any and all of these enumerated sections will raise more wheat and grain to the area, of acreage than any other country known to man. The actual yield of wheat per acre in these valleys will be thirty to thirty-five bushels, and where will this surplus grain find market? Via Tacoma and Puget Sound. If the price of wheat continues low, remem- ber that, while Dakota is raising her average of twenty-three bushels per acre, Washington Territory is raising her thirty-five bushels on the same amount of land, viz., one acre, and with an ocean outlet, with freight to Liverpool less than to New York, yes, less than to Chicago; the Washington Territory farmer can continue to raise wheat at half the price Dakota does. Can the reader now realize what it is that will make Tacoma grow ? And yet, this one item of grain is the weakest or lightest revenue of this coast. Consider also, that when the country tributary to this coast is as fully settled as Minnesota and Dakota, and this settlement is coming now so rapidly that Tacoma will handle all the surplus products raised from the Eastern Montana line to the shores of Puget Sound. When that time comes, how much more in shipments will Duluth have over Tacoma? Duluth has jumped into a population of 37,000 people from 15,000 in about two years. Tacoma will grow faster, if a water front and shipping interest make a city, for now Tacoma is an infant shipping port to what she will be five years hence. Duluth has several railroads - five or more. Tacoma has one. It will take two or three years to build another road over these mountains. As Tacoma has the only eastern railway outlet direct, and is the actual inevitable and permanent terminus of a main trunk line, she will grow beyond the fear of any possible rival, and her prestige will be settled and assured ere any rival city on this coast can equal or outstrip her. If the many railways running into Duluth should reduce the price of freight and also force each road to cut or fight for its pro rata share of freight, could not the Northern Pacific, for the sake of carrying the most of the produce, make rates that would justify it (by the increased quantity of each crop it would get) in hauling grain for an European market via Tacoma? It could land the volume of grain products from the Missouri slope in Dakota to this coast, reaping its reward, even if it carries it at a less prorata rate than to Duluth, simply because it could thus carry the whole product to market without dividing the haul with competitors. New York is in the front of America, with the markets of the world be~ fore it. Tacoma is in the rear of America, with the same market; and' while the distance to Liverpool via Cape Horn forces the longer trip for sailing vessels from here instead of New York, the nearness of China and Japan to Tacoma over New York more than compensates; with this additional advantage to Tacoma that China is emulating the progressive nations and is fast becoming our very best foreign customer.

Her Coae Interests One of the Most Vitae Factors in the Wonderful Growth of Tacoma. - A Vast Increasing Home Demand with Excellent Markets to the East and South. - All Choicest Gas and Coking Coals have been Found and are being Mined. - Iron Ore in Inexhaustible Quantities on Either Side of the Cascade Range. - The Entire Product of the Alaskan Gold Mines to be Sent to Tacoma for Reduction. - Puget Coal Fields. - An Important and Certain Factor in the Growth of Tacoma. - Black Diamonds Unsurpassed in Quality. - California in the Field. - The Principal Mines.

7"ACOMA, W. T., Special Correspondence Pioneer Press, April 9. - The coal interests of Tacoma, through its immediate tributary fields, is a vitally important and now certain factor in the development and rapid growth of this city, and it is destined to be one of the most important industries. Aside from the vast increasing home demand; the coal interests have a market to the east practically to the Dakota line, and in gas and coking coals Dakota can be included as a purchaser. Better coals are found as mining progresses, and economy in production is fast securing a minimum cost. If the lower beds in the formation should yield a better -coal, the greater advantage is with this section - yet all these coals are merchantable, and are fast supplanting foreign coals in California. That state consumed 1,500,000 tons in 1886. Up to a very recent date the capital employed, the means of transportation to market and the number of available mines were limited. Now, though the coal interest here is in its infancy, it is becoming a leading export in the costwise trade, and if the California demand continues to increase in the ratio of the past, 75 per cent, of the coal used in that state will be furnished from the coal fields of Puget Sound. A better conception of the extent of the California demand is shown in the fact that that state has no coal, or nominally none, and the larger mines in this and adjacent counties are owned and worked by California railroads. The Central Pacific own and consume the entire yield of the Carbonado mines. The product is hauled by rail from the mines, thirty miles distant from Tacoma, run into the great coal bunkers on the wharves here, and run thence by chutes into the hold of the company's ships, which are daily loading here at this port. The published claim that Washington Territory is the Pennsylvania not only of the Pacific coast but of the Northwest, is no idle or unwarranted boast. Unough has already been discovered and developed to establish this claim. All the coal fields proper have been found west of the Cascade range, and the very choicest and best coking and gas coals have been found and are being mined in this (Pierce) county, of which Tacoma is the county seat. An idea of the importance of these coal mines can best be formed in the statement that the only coal ever yet found west of the Missouri river that will coke is from the mines immediately tributary to this city. The analysis of the coke from these mines proves it the superior of the Connellsville (Pa.) coke, viz:

Another Important Fact

Another very important fact is that every city on Puget Sound using gas buys this Pierce county coal, as up to the present time no other gas coal on this sound has been discovered. The coals are either bituminous or semi-bituminous, and while all bituminous coals do not make coke, those tested here have made a superior coke. In other words, the majorityof the mines worked in this county furnish the bituminous character of coal, while in adjacent counties the mines worked furnish lignite coal.. The classification of these coals in their adaptability to general use is that the lignite is admirable for steam and domestic purposes, while the Pierce county bituminous coal is excellent, not only for these purposes, but also* for gas, forge coal and coke, thus establishing the certainty that smelters or reduction works must find lodgment in Tacoma. All the elements, viz : lime, coal, coke and ore, are here or in close proximity to this city. The coal measures in the Puget Sound baisin are of the tertiary formation. In tracing the seams of coal, disregarding minor irregularities, it is found they lie in a wide trough between the Cascade and Olympic ranges. The * lignites are found in the central part of this trough, and strata-graphicilly in the upper series, while lower down in the series true coals, or those resembling them are found. A belief prevails that the tertiary rocks rest, unconformably on the cretaceous, and are separated from it by a lapse of time during which the folding of the older beds and elevation of mountains took place ; but it is not improbable th^t in some places there may be: a more or less complete series of passage beds between cretaceous and tertiary, as occurs on the eastern slopes of the Rocky mountains ; or that there may even be two unconformable series of tertiary rocks.

The Coae Analyzed

An analysis of the coals in Pierce and adjacent counties is here given, from which the reader can see the relative value of each, and easily determine the advantage given to Tacoma over other points, by the superiority of her coal for manufacturing purposes:

These analyses clearly establish that the bituminous coal of Pierce county, which is to-day the best coal on Puget Sound - the Wingate vein at the head - is far suprior to all other coal in competition, and that the Roslyn coal, which is on the eastern side of the mountain, is next best, and is the best coal on that side as far as known. The Thurston county lignite, but little remote from semi-bituminous, is the superior to all other lignites on this coast, as it does not exhibit the slightest trace of sulphur.

In Successful Operation

The following are the coal mines now in successful operation near here. The majority haul their products by rail to this market, and ship all surplus not consumed in Tacoma, from here, viz:

South Prairie mine, gas coal, owned by San Francisco parties. Output, 10,000 tons per month. Among the best in this market. Present working vein about four feet. Inexhaustible.

Wilkeson mines, coking coal. - Working three veins, five feet, six feet and eight feet thick. Two mines, one owned by Northern Pacific, and used by them; one owned by Tacoma Coal company. Output, 4,000 tons each; 8,000 total.