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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1897 | 10 |
| 1898 | 15 |
| 1899 | 2 |
27 stories matching half
- The Creamery Burned, and 5,600 Pounds of Milk Had Nowhere to Go
A June 18 fire near Ahtanum destroyed Jacob Fruer’s creamery and caused $1,500 in damage — only about half covered by insurance.
- Railroads Raise the Freight on a Crop Already at Rock Bottom
A half-cent-a-pound shipping increase hits Washington hop growers just as overproduction and lice drive prices to their lowest ebb.
- The Milk Inspector Spokane Loved to Hate
Dr. James Bullivant fined five Spokane dairymen for selling milk below standard. The dairymen said he was less interested in public health than in collecting half the fines.
- The Book-Keeper and the Plumber Who Milked Twenty-Six Cows Before Breakfast
Two Spokane office men built a dairy on the Spokane River without quitting their day jobs — and sent Hoard's Dairyman the receipts, down to the price of bran.
- The High Cost of Neglected Apiaries
A local beekeeping expert warns that failing to clear weeds from hive entrances is costing regional producers significant honey yields.
- The Business of Better Breeding
A Kittitas farmer shares his success in upgrading his dairy herd, proving that selective breeding and data-driven management were the keys to agricultural prosperity in the 1890s.
- The Tumbleweed That Threatened Washington's Wheat
In 1898, a state agricultural professor traced an invasive Russian thistle to railway yards and warned that Yakima County was already infested.
- The War on Narrow Wagon Wheels
Seattle's Chamber of Commerce wants the legislature to force wider wagon tires — to save the city's wooden sidewalks and brick streets from being chewed to pieces.
- A $10,000 Co-op With No Fruit in the Store
A Seattle farm reporter walks into the Tacoma offices of the Washington Fruit Produce Union to find both its manager and secretary conveniently 'out of town,' an empty warehouse, a treasurer who ran off with the funds — and hundreds of farmers who had just paid $5 apiece to join.
- The Prize Apple Was Stuffed With Shot
A judge's suspicion at the Spokane fair exposed a prank that briefly put a Wilbur exhibitor's reputation on the line.
- The Wool Boom in Yakima
New statistics reveal that Yakima County dominates the state's sheep industry, holding nearly half of Washington's total flock.
- The Parasitic Weed Threatening San Juan Clover
A local farmer warns neighbors of a strangling weed that threatens to wipe out clover fields across the island.
- The Grass Belongs to Klickitat
A new Washington sheep quarantine law promised to shut out 75,000 Oregon sheep — and local stockmen said the range was theirs, not the neighbors'.
- The Poison That Was Too Weak to Hurt a Child
Yakima County's fruit inspector found orchards sprayed and Paris green so adulterated that a child who ate it showed no serious symptoms.
- The Weed That Beat Wheat Hay
A Cheney-area farmer's experiment with prickly lettuce convinced him the despised weed was better cattle feed than his best wheat and oat hay.
- Poisoned Horses on the Horse Heaven Range: How One Sheepman Went to War With Coyotes
A Yakima County sheep raiser buys up 26 cayuses, shoots them, laces the carcasses with strychnine and arsenic, and reports that dozens of coyotes have already taken the bait.
- Don't Bond the Valley to a Dry Ditch
A Wenatchee editor warns that a $100,000 Wright-law irrigation bond would repeat the Kennewick failure—leaving settlers with debt, abandoned orchards, and no water.
- The Debts a Country Owes Its Farmers — and Its Farmers' Wives
An 1898 farm-column editorial tallies what rural Washington neglects: untrained road supervisors, school directors so illiterate the legislature had to bar them, and farm women who never see a newspaper or a neighbor.
- A Fruit Grower's Pitch: Stop Sending Cash East — Feed Alaska Instead
Before the Northwest Fruitgrower's Association, S. L. Moore argued that Washington farmers should diversify beyond wheat and prunes, supply Alaska and Western markets, and let the Northern Pacific's traveling fruit exhibit lure settlers west.
- The Desert That Could Bloom: Pasco’s Irrigation Revival
Philadelphia capital revives an abandoned Palouse canal project, promising water for 5,000 acres this summer and eventually 15,000 acres near Pasco.
- While Seattle Chased Klondike Gold, Portland Quietly Bought the Farm
An 1897 editorial warns Puget Sound that its Klondike outfitting boom is blinding it to a $150 million agricultural trade that Portland is stealing from the inland Northwest.
- The Sugar War: Why Yakima Farmers Wanted Hawaii's Sweet Deal Axed
Northern Pacific distributed beet seed in North Yakima to test sugar production, but farmers argued they couldn't compete with Hawaiian sugar grown with cheap labor.
- The Night the Chickens Sang Backup: Spokane’s Poultry Show
Spokane’s annual poultry exhibition drew hundreds of birds, a towering silver trophy, and an orchestra the chickens refused to let finish alone.
- When Every Eastern Market Was Swamped: The 1897 Fruit Glut That Broke Northwest Growers
A Northwest agricultural writer tallies the wreckage of a boom season — glutted markets, freight and icing bills nobody could pay, and a blunt prescription for growers: dry your prunes and hold for a price.
- The Gospel of the Cow: A Governor Tells Washington Dairymen How to Get Rich
At the state dairymen's convention, Wisconsin's Gov. W. D. Hoard preaches cleanliness, cold wells and the Chicago market — and spins the tale of Carl the German farmer who turned stinking butter into $50,000.