Democratic Sentinel, Volume 13, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 June 1889 — Tide Prairies of the Pacific Coast. [ARTICLE]

Tide Prairies of the Pacific Coast.

But very few, if any, of the hundreds of people now arriving here from inland States know anything about our tide prairies, and for their benefit this article is written. First, they are not mud flats, as many suppose, but they are genuine prairies, built up on the one side by the deposits of the ebb and flow of old ocean, for how many millions of years no mail knows, and on the other side by the washings of decayed vegetation from the hills and uplands ever since the hills have stood; the two mixing their deposits and washings together have grown up an alluvial formation which is not nor cannot be excelled for richness in the known world. These prairies extend from the water’s edge back to the uplands and up the various streams and are only covered by water at high tide, and even in their wild state grow a nutritious grass which, if not fed dowm, grows far above the head of an ordinary man. But when old ocean’s salty brine is fenced off by a dyke is when this land shows off its mettle. It laughs at five tons of timothy to the acre; 100 bushels of oats, 600 bushels of potatoes, or fifty-six tons of beets or rutabagas are no burden whatever, and year after year it seems to increase in fertility. It has no wear-out, droughts do not affect it, but it toils on year by year and as sure as the farmer puts in the seed and keeps it clear from weeds he is sure of a rich harvest. This land never disappoints the owner, but is as reliable as old ocean itself.—Montesano {Cal.) Vidette.