The Palouse Wheat Boom Was a Gold Mine—Until the Debt Came Due

By Prof. W. J. Spillman, of the Washington Agricultural College.

Farming in the Palouse country is almost synonymous with wheat raising. No other farm product is produced in greater quantity than is needed for home consumption. The usual complement of livestock consists of horses, a few cows, with usually a few hogs and chickens. Sheep are almost unknown on the ranches, though they are very plentiful on the mountain ranges near by. A few farmers purchase bands of sheep in the spring, run them on their summer fallow, and sell them again in the fall, but this practice is not common. The horses are, for the most part, grade “cayuses”; that is, they are descended from the Indian ponies, known universally in this section as cayuses. While not plentiful, yet there are, in increasing numbers, grades from the improved breeds, mostly of French Draft and Clyde amongst the heavier, and the American trotter amongst the lighter breeds.

The cattle are mostly natives and grades of the Shorthorn and Hereford. Dairying is not a leading feature of Palouse country farming, though here and there is found a farmer who supplies butter to the inhabitants of the neighboring village. The hogs and chickens may be said to pick up their living. They are the scavengers of the place, and live mostly on the refuse of the kitchen and barnyard. Hogs became quite plentiful after the wet season of 1893, when a large part of the wheat crop was sprouted by unseasonable rains, but with the return of good prices for wheat, hogs again sank into insignificance.

It is estimated that, with an average yield of thirty bushels per acre, the cost of producing a bushel of wheat in the Palouse country is about thirty-four cents, sacked and in the elevator. This allows fair wages for all the work necessary in producing the crop. A farmer, then, who does all his own work could sell wheat at this price and receive fair remuneration. He who hires his work done counts his profit by the excess of the selling price above thirty-four cents. During the present season wheat has sold at sixty and seventy cents. It is little wonder, therefore, that as long as the soil can be made to yield a reasonable return farmers confine their attention to wheat raising.

For many years after wheat raising became the leading feature of farming, prices were good; a farm in the Palouse country was considered a veritable gold mine. Possibility of rapid accumulations from wheat raising led to speculations in land. It is stated on good authority, that in 1893, when the change came, ninety per cent of the farmers in the Palouse country were in debt for land. Every other man had bought out his neighbor, and this process had continued, until when the crash came, farms of less than 360 acres were rare, and farms of a thousand acres common. These debts did not represent hard times; they were purely speculative; and they were almost universal.

In 1893, as before intimated, most of the wheat was ruined by rain. The fall rains began a month earlier than usual, and caught the farmers napping. During the next two years the panic was on all over the country, and wheat prices were below the cost of production. Here were three years during which even interest obligations could not be met. Hogs, which had been plentiful during these three years of cheap or spoiled wheat, had become so numerous by the fall of ’95 as to overstock the limited market for hog products, and the price of pork had fallen below cost of production. The dairy interest got fairly started during these three years.

But with the season of ’96 came the reaction. The price of wheat began to rise, and continued steadily to advance till it had reached over sixty cents. Courage returned and a large acreage was sown. The season of ’97 brought a combination realized only once in a lifetime. Not only was the acreage large, but the yield was phenomenal, and prices were even better than the previous season. The Palouse country is again like a mining camp, full of excitement, trade heavy, no idle men except from choice, and all the talk is of wheat, wheat, wheat. Warehouses are breaking down with the immense crop. Great platforms beside them are covered with sacks of wheat. Wheat in this section is handled entirely in jute bags, a large part of which are made at the state prison in Walla Walla and sold by the state directly to the farmer.