A Review of the Resources and Industries of the State of Washington, 1909 | Page 9

In Shoalwater bay, Willipa bay, Grays harbor, and many of the bays and inlets of Puget Sound, oysters are being successfully grown. In some instances oyster farms are paying as much as $1,000 per acre. The state has sold many thousand acres of submerged lands for this purpose. It has also reserved several thousand acres of natural oyster beds, from which the seed oysters are annually sold at a cheap price to the oyster farmers, who plant them upon their own lands and market them when full grown.
The native oysters are much smaller than the eastern oysters and of a distinct flavor, but command the same prices in the market.
AGRICULTURE.
Cereals.
The largest and most important industry in the state is without doubt the cultivation of the soil. The great variety of the soils and climatic conditions has made the state, in different parts, admirably adapted to a large variety of farm products. Vast fields of wheat cover a large proportion of the uplands of eastern Washington, the average yield of which is greater than that of any other state in the Union.
The diked lands of western Washington produce oats at the rate of 100 to 125 bushels per acre. In some counties in southeastern Washington barley is more profitable than any other cereal, on account of the large yield and superior quality.
Corn is successfully raised in some of the irrigated lands, but is not as profitable as some other crops and hence is not an important factor in Washington's grain supply. Rye, buckwheat, and flax, are successfully grown in many localities. In western Washington, particularly, peas form an important ration for stock food and are extensively raised for seed, excelling in quality the peas of most other states.
[Page 23] Hops.
Hops are a large staple product in many counties of the state. They are of excellent quality, and the yield is large and their cultivation generally profitable. The chief drawback is in the fluctuations of the market price.
Grass and Hay.
Grass here, as elsewhere, is very little talked about, although it is one of the large elements that make the profits of agriculture. Saying nothing of the vast amount of grass consumed green, the state probably produces a million tons of hay annually, averaging $10 per ton in value. Western Washington is evergreen in pasturage as well as forests and no spot in the Union can excel it for annual grass production.
East of the mountains a very large acreage is in alfalfa, with a yield exceeding six tons per acre.
Potatoes.
On the alluvial soils of western Washington and the irrigated lands of the eastern valleys, potatoes yield exceedingly heavy crops of fine tubers, often from 400 to 600 bushels per acre. All other root crops are produced in abundance.
Beets.
Extensive experiments have proved that the sugar beet can be raised profitably in many counties and sugar is now on the markets of the state, made within its borders from home-grown beets.
Truck Gardening.
Garden stuff is supplied to all the large cities chiefly from surrounding lands in proper seasons, but much is imported from southern localities to supply the market out of season. The soils utilized for this purpose are the low alluvial valley lands and irrigated volcanic ash lands. The yield from both is astonishing to people from the eastern prairie states, and even in western Washington, with its humid atmosphere and cool nights, tomatoes, squashes and sweet corn are being generously furnished the city markets. The warm irrigated lands of eastern [Page 24] Washington produce abundant crops of melons, cucumbers, squashes and all other vegetables.
HORTICULTURE.
The conditions for successful fruit growing are abundant, and peculiarly adapted to produce excellence in quality and quantity in nearly all parts of the state, but some localities have better conditions for some particular fruits than others, e. g., western Washington excels in the raising of raspberries and other small fruits of that sort, its climate and soils being suited to the production of large berries and heavy yields.
Certain localities in eastern Washington excel in the yield of orchard fruits, chiefly on irrigated lands. Owing to the abundant sunshine, the fruits of eastern Washington are more highly colored than those of other sections of the state.
Taking the state as a whole, horticulture is rapidly assuming vast importance. Thousands of acres are yearly being added to the area of orchards, and remarkable cash returns are being realized from the older plantings now in full bearing.
This is true of all the common orchard fruits, apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, etc.
In western Washington large plantings of the small fruits are growing in favor, some of the new fruits receiving especial attention. One plantation of thirty acres is devoted exclusively to Burbank's phenomenal berry.
Grapes are being grown on both sides of the mountains, the eastern side, however, giving this fruit much more attention. Cranberries are