When Eggs Became Legal Tender: How the Palouse Survived the Panic of 1893

Oakesdale, Jan. 11. — (Special.) — Farming has undergone a complete revolution in the Palouse country, and, despite the fact that the crop was lighter and the price lower, the advent of the new year finds the farmers in better financial condition than they were one year ago. The cause of this is the different methods of transacting business, and the fact that farmers produced something more than wheat in 1894.

Three years ago the country imported more than one-half the eggs and butter it consumed, and farmers said they would never sell an egg for less than 25 cents per dozen. Chickens were never worth less than $4, and more frequently $6 per dozen. Butter was never worth less than 50 cents, and frequently reached 75 cents per two-pound roll. Yet these staple articles were imported from the East in carload lots, and farmers frequently bought these staple farm products at the high prices mentioned.

Now everything is changed. The rains destroyed or greatly damaged the crop of 1893, and farmers found, for the first time in the history of the Palouse country, that they could not meet their payments for machinery, groceries and interest. Merchants found they could no longer sell goods on ten months' credit, and in a few short weeks the merchants throughout the Palouse country changed from a long credit to a spot cash basis, and farmers were compelled to pay cash for their groceries. Then the despised and neglected hen came to the rescue and saved the country. It is a noteworthy fact that the farmers of this country lived on the sale of eggs at 8 to 10 cents per dozen. It was their only means of support. Wheat could not be sold at any price — no one wanted it — and eggs became a legal tender at the stores. Farmers ate no eggs. They could not afford to. They were their only means of support, and they were sold in large quantities, and thousands of cases were shipped to the mines and the Sound country.

The lesson thus impressed so forcibly had its effect, and few farms are now without a lot of poultry, and eggs and poultry are now among the leading exports of this region. Hogs, too, are now exported, and it is hoped the present year will see no pork products shipped into this country from the East.

Farmers find that it pays better to feed wheat to hogs than to sell it at the low prices which have ruled for the past few years, and hog raising is becoming a leading industry here. It is a common sight to see car loads of hogs carried over the railroads bound for Spokane and Seattle. As a result, pork packing is fast becoming a paying industry in these cities, as well as in the smaller towns of the Palouse country. Oakesdale, Tekoa and Fairfield each have small packing establishments, and these will be followed by more and larger institutions of the same kind, so that in a few years the hog will be produced, slaughtered and made into pork products before it is shipped from this section, thus saving railroad transportation and furnishing employment for many men in the packing establishments.

As a sample of the profits in producing hogs in this country the Post-Intelligencer correspondent will give a few instances that have been brought to his notice recently. A citizen of this town bought four pigs last April, for which he paid $10, or $2.50 each. He bought lumber for a pen, which cost $1.50. He bought $3.50 worth of damaged wheat for feed, making a total outlay of $15 for pigs, pen and feed. When the feed was exhausted he let the hogs to a farmer on shares, the latter agreeing to feed the four hogs till November 1 for one hog. On November 1 the three hogs were sold for $16.50, weighing 220 pounds apiece and selling for 5½ cents live weight. Yet the farmer who fed them told the Post-Intelligencer correspondent that he got a better price for his wheat than he would had he sold it.

Another case is that of a farmer who sold six pigs, all of one litter, at eight months old, for $9.50, being 2¼ cents per pound. He told the Post-Intelligencer correspondent they had cost him but little, as they ran in the orchard and were fed on skim milk and peas.

Another industry which will be coupled with hog raising is the production of sugar beets. Many tests have been made, and all prove this country to be particularly adapted to the production of sugar beets, owing to the prolific yield and the large per cent of saccharine matter. Farmers propose to raise the beets on an extensive scale and try to get a beet sugar factory started here. If this is done the beets will be sold to the factory, and the pulp can be cooked and fed to hogs — a number of hogs may be raised from the product of a few tons of beets besides the sugar, which, of course, is the main object in raising them, the feed being clear profit. This principle is carried on near Rosalia, Spokane and other towns where creameries are located. Farmers take their milk to the creamery, the cream going into the butter and the skim milk going into a large trough, whence the farmer puts it in cans and takes it home to be fed to the hogs. As a result, every farmer who sells to the creamery has a nice lot of hogs to sell each year, the feed for which costs him nothing, for he is paid for the milk and gets it returned.

With these and other new industries that will follow, there is no doubt that prosperity will again visit this rich agricultural district and the farmers will, in a few years, become as prosperous as in the boom days, when everything 'turned to money' and their credit was unlimited.