Meadows to Oats
High prices for grain drive local ranchers to abandon hay production in favor of cash crops.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
A. J. Bogardus returned from a trip to the La Conner flats and Stanwood and reports a number of ranchers preparing to plow up their meadows and raise oats and wheat. The reason for this is that grain can be shipped, while they have to depend on the local market for a demand for their hay. The fact that oats have been so high the past year, owing to the demand for bound oats in California, is an incentive for the production of more of this grain on the Sound. Then, the wheat raised here sold well for chicken feed, and the yield being very heavy makes it an object to grow more of it. The result may be to so far limit the raising of hay as to leave a shortage for home consumption and higher prices for that product.
“The result may be to so far limit the raising of hay as to leave a shortage for home consumption and higher prices for that product.”
In 1893, farmers were pivoting to California-bound grain markets, foreshadowing the tension between global export demand and local food security that persists in Washington’s agricultural economy today. Much like modern land-use shifts, the decision to plow up meadows for profit-driven mono-cropping reflects how market incentives can quickly reshape the physical landscape of the region.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.