280 



THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



agriculture. This state possesses one of the grandest 

 supplies of merchantable standing timber in the United 

 States, now probably not less than 180,006,000,000 feet. 

 This is enough to keep the many mills of the state busy 

 for perhaps eighty years to come and employ many thou- 

 sands of hands. The product is shipped to all parts 

 of the world and is a great source of wealth. 



Four transcontinental railway systems connect with 

 the Pacific Ocean steamship lines at Puget Sound and 

 the Columbia river, and these roads with local lines and 

 the many factories and wholesale houses reciprocate 

 with a great and growing sea traffic, international, 

 coastwise and local. Alaska buys principally from 

 Washington markets and the gold, furs and fish catch 

 from that great northern empire flow into the ports of 

 the state in exchange. 



Wood products, including lumber, sash and doors 

 and furniture, smelted metals, flour and millstuffs, are 

 made extensively in the factories of western Washing- 

 ton, while ironworks and many other industries are 

 growing constantly. Bellingham, Everett, Seattle, Ta- 

 coma and Gray's Harbor are the principal manufactur- 

 ing centers. Seattle, Tacoma and other points have an 

 extensive and prosperous wholesale trade in all the cus- 

 tomary lines. 



This state has the only coal mines of importance 

 near the west coast of the United States. It is all 

 bituminous, and is produced extensively for local use 

 and shipment. Gold mining is not yet largely devel- 

 oped, but is assuming considerable importance. The 

 mountains are rich with many varieties of mineral de- 

 posits. 



The waters in and surrounding Washington on two 

 sides are the greatest salmon fishing fields in the world 

 and the catch is shipped to all the leading national and 

 many international markets. 



To a farmer from the Iowa prairies the hills about 

 Puget Sound do not look like good farming lands. It 

 takes work the real strenuous kind to dig out the 

 stumps, but once cleared, much of that unattractive 

 looking soil will grow big crops of strawberries, rasp- 

 berries, blackberries, cherries, apples, pears, prunes, veg- 

 etables and other products. 



The river valleys have been the principal theater 

 for agricultural activity heretofore. Some of these have 

 almost national fame that of the Puyallup river, for 

 instance. Here immense crops of strawberries, rasp- 

 berries, hops and other growths yield phenomenally. 

 Net returns of $500 an acre are not at all uncommon. 

 Wheat does not ripen well in this wet region, but grows 

 rank and is used for stock and poultry food. All this 

 part of the state is a fine grass and dairy 'country. Stock 

 thrives the year around. The winters are so mild, little 

 feeding for warmth is necessary. 



It is rainy, cloudy and at times foggy during the 

 winter around the sound, but there is no cold weather 

 to speak of. It is not unusual for roses to bloom nearly 

 all winter. There is little snow and that which falls 

 soon melts. In summer the sound country is one of the 

 most comfortable places in the United States. 



CORNING AND MAYWOOD COLONY. 



Send $2.50 for The Irrigation Age 

 1 year, and the Primer of Irrigation 



Well toward the northern lines of the Sacramento 

 valley, where its level plains first change to gently rolling 

 areas and thus give notice of the foothills and rugged 

 steeps beyond, lies the town of Corning. Ten years ago 

 Corning was but little more than a settlement on the 

 west-side branch of the Southern Pacific Railway, where 

 was clustered the usual group of business places ordinar- 

 ily drawn together at a railroad stopping place. Round 

 about the little hamlet waved broad fields of grain, and 

 upon the higher slopes grazed the herds of the ranchers 

 who populated the floor of the valley. Beyond the con- 

 fines of the little town, homes were separated by long 

 stretches of grain fields. Here and there in the yards 

 of ranch houses there bloomed and bore fruit a few of 

 the different varieties of deciduous trees, which, though 

 illy cared for, paid to the housewife an ample revenue 

 for the labor expended on them. Once in a great dis- 

 tance might be found, an orange or a lemon tree which 

 had been brought from the southland and nurtured al- 

 most as a curiosity. For years these conditions had 

 existed ; every landowner seemed satisfied, and sought 

 not for the fulness of the soil's possibilities. This satis- 

 faction cut off all experimental work in horticulture, 

 and brought about the same yearly round of seed-time 

 and harvest and hauling to the warehouses at Corning 

 of the annual yield from the broad fields. 



But the rich soil was by no means destined to 

 forever be devoted to the production of cereals. In 

 1891 the change first began. Keen eyes noted the pro- 

 ductiveness of the scattered fruit trees, and speculative 

 brains figured that if the soil would produce such fruits 

 almost without care, then certainly with modern meth- 

 ods of culture it would do still more. The result was a 

 combining by purchase of the most available lands sur- 

 rounding Corning, and the founding of what is today 

 one of the brightest examples of California possibilities 

 the Maywood Colony. 



The history of Maywood tells of a small beginning 

 wherein far-seeing investors looked into the future 

 for their reward. Gradually the area of the colony's 

 lands extended until it comprises today, in the eleventh 

 year of its existence, thirty-nine thousand acres, twelve- 

 thirteenths of which has passed into the hands of indi- 

 vidual owners. The town, where but a decade since 

 there was little of life or business, has been trans- 

 formed into a bustling community, with its shops and 

 markets, its schools and churches. 



Maywood Colony may certainly attribute its sue- 

 cess to a combination of natural advantages. Noting 

 that to the seeker after a home in this favored section, 

 blocks of ten acres were the most attractive, the col- 

 ony's founders caused the entire area to be cut into 

 such tracts, and between all of these subdivisions con- 

 structed broad roadways, which are today among the 

 most perfect in the state. There are in the colony no 

 less than 186 miles of these highways, and owing to the 

 class of soil from which they are constructed, in less 

 than a day after the severest rain-storm they are as 

 dry as the most expensively constructed macadam. Most 

 of these roads are bordered by trees of some kind, thus 

 fringing these miles of driveway with examples of the 

 cnlonv's prosperity. 



Upon hundreds of ten-acre tracts there have been 

 constructed comfortable homes, many of them sur- 



