Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1905 — LETTER FROM S. M. NORMAN. [ARTICLE]

LETTER FROM S. M. NORMAN.

Walla. Walla, Wash.,Sept. 18,1905. Editor Democrat: —We write you asking you to please hold our paper until we notify you where to send it, as we are leaving Walla Walla. We will go by team. We are not leaving this pleasant city because we do not like it, but because we canuot get a claim here, and we do not like the irrigated land, as there is a shortage of water at times, causing a great loss to orchards. A shortage of water this year caused much of the fruit to wither on the tree and much fell off. Wheat crops are better than they were last year. Wheat went from 20 to 60 bushels per acre, and very little went as low as 20 bushels. What is called the Eureka flats had a better wheat crop this year than ever before: wheat made an average of 60 bushels per acre. Can you imagine one man with 3,000 to 4,000 acres of such wheat land making this average? There are plenty of such farmers. A man with a small amount of money could not run such a ranch, as hired help comes high, ranging from $2.50 to $6.00 per day, including board but no bed. One is supposed to furnish their own bed, and sleep in the barn, in field or wherever they may find it convenient. Some ranches have bunk houses, but it is very healthy to sleep out of doors. A great many people sleep out on their lawns the whole summer long. But people from the east don’t fancy going about with their beds on their backs, as is the rule here. The Alfalfa crop is good; first crop is cut in June, second in August, and third in October. We have no rain to spoil hay as you have in the east in haying time. But our winter is more rain than cold. We prefer the rain to the cold weather you all enjoy in the east. In April we had a frost that hurt the prune crop badly. The last Sunday in August we had a dust storm, the worst the Walla Wallaians and valley residents ever experienced in forty years, old residents claim. Oh, how I would like them to take a stroll in our old and well remembered Hoosier state, and face a good swift breeze once. This wind blew off the pears and apples, and the crop will be short for winter use, All kinds of vegetables are plentiful; potatoes are 70 cents per bushel, onions 40 cents, cabbage 1| cents per pound. Stone work is not plentiful here in the valley, as stone is scarce and has to be shipped in. Also, the artificial stone hurts the trade. Small stone is plenty in some places, but is more like river stone, being so small. I have built more retaining walls than anything else, some seven feet high, also yard fences out of these small rock, and pits for hydraulic rams used to force up the water for sprinkling lawns. There is a 'kind of small stone with cells in it like honey comb, red-like; makes fine fences around lawns. I have built the only arched stone footbridge we have in Walla Walla. I got a good price for the work. Now, friends, we are expecting to have a very pleasant trip, and our five sons are anticipating a very exciting one; they are expecting to meet with some of the ad-, ventures of Boone and Kenton of old, but we older ones enjoy hearing the air-castle building going on, and yet it is very exciting in the extreme sometimes. Kind regards to all old friends. S. H. Norman. See Baughman & Williams for farm and city loans.