Yakima's Artesian Boom: Turning Desert Into Hop Fields

“Yakima and the Yakima country adjacent are prosperous beyond expectations this season,” said Attorney Fred Parker to a Tacoma Globe reporter Wednesday. “The experiment in artesian wells has demonstrated the feasibility of that mode of irrigation in central Washington. The success of the wells in the Moxee Valley, twelve miles north and east of the city, is practically assured. This will reclaim not less than 30,000 acres, hitherto classed as desert land, but susceptible of the highest degree of cultivation, when a supply of water is obtained. The ‘big ditch’ enterprises, contemplating the reclamation of other large areas, by drawing water from the Yakima and Naches rivers, are also progressing very satisfactorily. This great system of irrigation will stimulate agriculture and horticulture throughout all the region. Already numerous extensive hop growers of the Sound country have made purchases in Yakima County and commenced preparations for establishing yards on a large scale—Ezra Meeker being among the heaviest investors. Practical tests have been made in that climate with the hop pests, demonstrating the fact that they cannot survive there, where the vines are exposed to the sun and the free sweep of the winds. The yield, also, is fully equal to that of any other portion of the United States, and the product grades high in the foreign market. On the whole, North Yakima has no reason to complain of hard times or a discouraging outlook. Politics? Oh, we don’t talk politics now; we are too busy pushing and pulling for North Yakima and all the tributary country. There will be time enough to talk politics after the second crop of alfalfa is harvested, next year.”