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| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1897 | 7 |
| 1898 | 17 |
24 stories matching soil
- The Great Soil Debate of 1897
A Washington agricultural expert challenges the common practice of summer-fallowing, warning that the method is depleting the state's soil nitrogen and threatening long-term fertility.
- The Great Wheat Debate: Can Eastern Washington Change Its Ways?
A professor and a local farmer clash over the future of the region's soil, debating whether to abandon the 'summer-fallow' method for a more sustainable crop rotation.
- Turning Alkali Wasteland into Productive Soil
A Yakima farmer reports a successful experiment in reclaiming unusable alkali land through irrigation and flooding.
- The Berry Math That Made Puyallup
A fruit-growers' manager laid out the 1898 economics of Western Washington berries: $1 a crate, 75-cent hired labor, and a cannery on the horizon.
- Turning Salt Flats into Wheat Fields
A Yakima sheepman discovers how to reclaim abandoned alkali-ridden soil through careful irrigation.
- They Called the Prairie Worthless. He Planted Wheat Anyway.
A government immigration inspector bought gravelly land south of Tacoma and proved the skeptics wrong — sixteen bushels an acre of No. 1 hard wheat.
- The Future of Farming at Washington Agricultural College
A visit to the Pullman campus reveals the experimental work being done to improve Eastern Washington's agricultural yields.
- The Fruit Boom on Orcas Island
A local resident reports on the rapid agricultural expansion of the San Juan Islands, predicting a tenfold increase in fruit production.
- Wenatchee Growers Told a Railroad: Give Us Water and We'll Fill Your Freight Cars
A delegation of Wenatchee Valley orchardists met Great Northern officials at Seattle's Hotel Butler to argue that irrigation—not mines or timber—would turn eastern Washington into a freight-producing countryside.
- Yakima Farmers Answer the Call to Organize
At Mason's Opera House, A. B. Leckenby tells North Yakima growers that cooperation—not outside capital—is the valley's best hope, and a countywide farmers' club takes shape for Feb. 12.
- The $100 Cannery: Whatcom Farmers Learn to Preserve Their Own Harvest
A traveling demonstration in Laurel and Nooksack City showed growers how to solder, seal and process fruit—and argued that small local canneries could outlast the timber boom.
- 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.
- Yakima's Experiment Station Bets on a Twelve-Foot Wonder Crop
The Northern Pacific test plots at Yakima prove Japanese hemp flourishes in the valley, and a Pacific-coast expert predicts a lucrative new staple for Washington and Oregon.
- The Valley That Organized Itself: Nooksack Farmers Build a Co-op and Demand Pure Food
At a December meeting in Deming, farmers from the Upper Nooksack and Sumas Valley formed a permanent association, secured a power separator for 200 cows, and called for a pure food law to stop the adulteration of fruit jams.
- 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.
- Wenatchee Bets the Valley on Alfalfa — And Dreams of Dairy Herds
A touring correspondent finds the apple country sowing alfalfa by the acre, convinced the real money is in feed, stock and cream rather than in boxed fruit shipped east.
- The Water Belongs to the People—Not the Syndicates
A.M. Stevens of Ellensburg warns that handing arid lands to the states is the first step toward private control—and argues the federal government must build the reservoirs.
- Spokane’s Fifteen-Cent Fair Was a Dollar Show for the Inland Empire
In October 1897, Spokane turned a downtown block into a clean, no-gambling agricultural exposition—and invited the whole Inland Empire to admire its fruit, grain, and future.
- The Palouse Wheat Boom Was a Gold Mine—Until the Debt Came Due
An agricultural professor traces the Palouse’s speculative wheat economy: inflated land purchases, the rain-ruined crop of 1893, the panic that followed, and the sudden recovery by 1897.
- 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 Dairy Commissioner’s War on Adulterated Food
A Washington dairy official warns that fake honey, poisoned candy, oleomargarine and brewers’ grain are cheating farmers — and demands stronger pure-food laws.
- Wenatchee, 1898: A Valley Sold on Irrigation and Fruit
A booster's tour of the Wenatchee Valley recounts the first settlers, the whisky traders who fled the law, and the orchards and ditches that promised to turn sagebrush into wealth.
- The 1898 Sales Pitch That Called the San Juan Islands a 'Klondike at Home'
A judge's promotional essay promised apples, prunes, sheep, fish, limestone and health in Washington's island county—and complained that the outside world had not yet noticed.
- The $80,000 Cranberry Bog Behind the Ilwaco Beach
A state commissioner tours Pacific County's cranberry marsh — 1,600 acres, 7,280 bushels shipped to San Francisco, 200 pickers at fifty cents a bushel, and a company openly hoping to replace its Chinese crew with white labor.