Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1907 — LETTER FROM WASHINGTON. [ARTICLE]

LETTER FROM WASHINGTON.

The following letter from John Sayler of Hartline, Wash., ia banded ue for publication: a April 7,1907. Dear Brother Frank:—lt has been sometime since X received your letter, but thought that I would wait until I had been here sometime and learned some of the ways of farming and more of the conditions of the country. I have been here nearly four months, have made a study of the country, ways of the people, ways of farming, kind of tools used, kinds of grain raised, and the most successful ways of raising it, and everything I could possibly learn in a short time. Now, Frank, I will write you my experience as far as I have gone, and as there are a number of friends in Rensselaer and vicinity who asked me to write to them when I got out here and tell them all about the country, you can ask the editor to print this letter if you like, then they will all know as much about the country as I do, provided that they believe what I say. First, you asked what does the country look like? Just go north from Rensselaer upon top of the hill north of Alf Donnelly’s, known as the “Givens’ Hill,’’ and look north to George Burke’s, west toward the Porter farm, south toward Rensselaer, and you will be looking over our country, "the part of the Big Bend v:e live in. Now as to climate, I am only writing what I have experienced. When I came there was plenty of snow on the ground, but only one night did it get as cold as zero. The first of March the boys began plowing. Some places the snow wss three or four feet deep, but that makes no difference here? If the ground; is frozen when the snow falls the frost all comes out as the snow goes off. They raise wheat, oats, barley, alfalfa, potatoes, sweet-com, every and all kind of garden truck and vines. This is the greatest country for horses I have ever seen. Every farmer has from 15 to 20 head of horses, owing to the amount of land they are running. Now you will say -that it must be expenedve to winter so many horses. A man working a section of land, it will not cost him a dollar to winter 20 or 30 horses. They are turned out and they run to the straw stacks and come out in the spring in better shape than they started in. The* straw is all beaded grain and it is as good for bed as shredded foddor back east for stock. As to the way of farming. My boys for example, plowed 80 acres, seeded 400 acres and harrowed it twice in juat 35 days. Now you may say that is a pretty big one in plowing and harrowing. They can do the same work of six men back east, as the tools are three times as big. The plows are three bottom, three furrows. The harrows are 30 to 50 feet wide. One man can harrow 80 acres per day, drives six to eight horses and rides one behind the harrow—nobody walks out here. We sow 35 to 40 pouhds per acre of wheat, one bushel of oats and 12 pounds of alfalfa. Land in /s and near Hartline is worth >35 to >4O per acre. Our farm ia in two miles of Hartline. Hartline is ,a thriving little new town of 500 inhabitants, one flouring mill, with a capacity of 500 barrels per day. They have 9 ware-houses which will hold as much as Babcock’s elevator in Rensselaer. All of them were full last fall and 120,000 bushel piled outside. There is a fine graded school building, a department store, much larger, than Forsythe’s, and several smaller stores of all kinds. John Saylbb.