An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day, Part 55

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1014

USA > Idaho > An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day > Part 55

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One thing the farmer in this valley may be ab- solutely certain of, and that is that he will get a crop every year. There are no "off years," " no droughts, no floods, no tornadoes. A story is told of a tourist through Kansas who met a native and asked him what sort of a country Kansas was to settle in. The native replied by asking this question: "If you had known a man for twenty-two years and he had been a horse thief, a blackleg, and a regular out and out child of sin and the devil for twenty years, and then had reformed and been just a tolerably decent sort of fellow for two years, would you tie to him?" The tourist said that he didn't think that he would. The native dug spurs into his tired broncho, leaving the tourist to

cipher out the moral. No such allegory can be drawn of the Payette valley. It is the same one year with another. If it is bad, there is no hope of reform; if it is good, there is no fear of its fall. It courts investigation.

DAIRYING.

In the valley of the Payette the farmer cuts from two to four crops of hay each season. The average tonnage per acre each season is five. There have been as high as eight and nine tons of alfalfa taken off a single acre from four cut- tings a season. With all the grasses-alfalfa, clover, timothy, orchard-grass, blue-grass and others-yielding such weights of forage, the question of feeding stock is reduced to a mini- mum, taking into consideration also that all other forage produces in like measure. It is no unusual thing for four to eight head of stock to be pastured to the acre. Compare this feeding capacity with that of eastern acres. There is but one creamery in the state of Idaho, and even dairies are few. There is but one in the Payette valley. The price of butter in the Payette val- ley has never been less than twenty cents per pound. The price of creamery butter is from that figure to twenty-five cents anywhere in the state. Idaho annually ships in thousands of pounds of butter from California, Utah, Oregon and other states.

POULTRY.

Nobody in this section of the country has as yet taken special interest in the development of the poultry industry. During the winter months it is oftentimes impossible to buy an egg in the Payette valley, and if any are offered for sale the price asked for them is from twenty-five to thirty cents a dozen. There is no reason why the hen should not be worked to her full ca- pacity here. The weather is never severe enough to necessitate the erection of expensive buildings, and feed is plenty. The rearing of chickens will, in fact, become a part and parcel of fruit-growing. A few dozen industrious birds in an orchard will do more than almost any other agency, unless it be hogs, to destroy the various insect enemies of fruit. The chicken has come to stay and it will produce a considerable part of the valley's wealth. There are several residents both at Pay- ette and New Plymouth who have introduced thoroughbred birds, such as Cochins, Wyan- dottes, Langshans, Plymouth Rocks and Leg- horns. Eggs and individual fowls from these fanciers are being distributed over the country, to the effect that nearly all flocks are being im- proved.

TIMBER.

Scrutiny of and reflection on the following fig- ures are invited. They do not misrepresent in

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any essential. There are one million acres of timber land of which the Payette river is the natural and only outlet. It is certain that this timber will cut twenty thousand feet to the acre, and in all probability it will cut more. That means that there are twenty billion feet of it. It is worth fifteen dollars a thousand at Payette. Therefore it represents a value of three hundred dollars per acre, or three hundred million dollars. Of this timber five per cent is tamarack, ten per cent is fir and eighty-five per cent is pine. The percentage of rot in this timber will not exceed one-half of one per cent; that of Michigan ex- ceeds twenty-five per cent. These are surpris- ing figures and such as may sound exaggerated to those who live in less extensive areas than the people of Idaho; but, taking into considera- tion that there are fifty-five million acres in the state, of which twenty millions are estimated as timber lands, there is nothing unreasonable in them.

This timber, often rising to a height of over one hundred feet, stands in most instances so thick as to exclude the light of the sun, and is straight and flawless, generally speaking. It is not claimed for it that its quality is superior to other timber belts of this section, but it is as- serted for it that it is of more value than the same kinds either in Oregon or Washington be- cause there is a greater percentage of "uppers" or clear lumber. As previously stated the Pay- ette river is the natural and only outlet for these billions of feet. Not only does it furnish a high- way on which logs may be driven to mill every month in the year but two, but it will also furnish the power to drive the mills. It is possible, also, to get the logs out of the timber to the river at all seasons of the year, the snow never getting so deep as to prevent work. Another feature that adds to the value of the lumber is that all refuse can be sold for wood, and even the sawdust com- mands ready sale. It is a well known fact that the demand for lumber exceeds the supply. There is now going eastward over the Oregon Short Line Railway daily often as much as a train load of lumber from Oregon. The forests of that state have been subjected to a steady drain for many years, and those in the western part, in the Blue mountain region, are becoming badly thinned. As a matter of fact the only untouched pineries of the United States are in this state, and the Payette taps one of them that is not the least. The market for the lumber stretches east for a distance of fifteen hundred miles, a country a large part of which is timberless There are now two mills sawing lumber in this belt, one at Payette and one in what is called the Dry Buck country. Emmett is the distributing point for the latter and it is a Payette valley enterprise.

These mills have never been able to supply the local demand, quantities of lumber being shipped here from Oregon.

CATTLE.

Time was, ten years ago, when the cattle of the Payette valley were counted by the tens of thousands ; and the "hi, hi!" of the cowboy made the land merry during the spring and fall round- ups. There has been a change since then, and although there are many still in the country, the days of individual ownership of large bands is past. If you ask a cattle man to tell you why it will pay you well to embark in his business, he will say to you, "Because there are spring, summer and fall ranges off which you can send your stock to market in first-class condition, and you can winter them at a cost of one dollar and fifty cents a head." The cheapness of winter feeding is the main article of faith. More cattle are fed only two months of the year than are fed three, and the cost of hay is seldom over three dollars a ton.

The quality of the cattle of this section of Idaho ranks among the best of grass-fed stock of the northwest, taking precedence of that of Mon- tana, Wyoming and Oregon. This is due not so much to any superiority of feed as to the fact that there have been imported a number of bulls of high grade. One owner in the Payette se- cured two Herefords from Adams Earl, of Earl Park, Indiana, at a cost of one thousand dollars at five months old, and there is some shorthorn and Durham stock of the best.

It is estimated that there were about ten thou- sand head of cattle wintered in the Payette val- ley this year. Of these the largest single owner- ship was fifteen hundred, at Emmett, and the next about one thousand, at Payette. The rest were divided up into holdings of from fifty to three hundred head.

Tributary to the Payette, in the Weiser, In- dian, Crane creek, Squaw creek, Paddock and Long valleys, there are many thousands of stock which are driven in for shipment at this and ad- jacent points. Present prices range at fifteen and sixteen dollars for yearlings and twenty to twenty-four dollars for two-year-olds. The future of the cattle industry will see a continually in- creasing number in the country, but they will be in bands of tens and twenties owned by each rancher whose few acres of hay land will furnish them abundant feed.

SHEEP.

Wool is not the least of the items that swell the commerce of the Payette valley. The wool clip from it and the surrounding sections amounts to about a half million pounds annually. With the advance in price guaranteed by a pro-

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tective tariff the business has proved most profit- able under the conditions existing here.

This valley offers a winter range which is un- excelled. Hay can be bought on an average for three dollars per ton, and the weather is never so severe as to necessitate artificial shelter. The time of feeding the past winter did not exceed two months. Several bands fed in the Payette broke winter camp in the middle of February and headed for the upper ranges. Others com- menced as early as the first of that month to turn out in the sage brush. The summer ranges for the sheep fed in the Payette valley lie in the numerous smaller valleys contiguous, and even high up on the mountain ranges. Feed is plenty and the ranges are not overrun.

The number of sheep in the country is increas- ing each year. From an insignificant number a half dozen years ago the industry has grown until the present. The supply of hay is increasing each year, making it a certainty that those engaging in the business will find an abundance of feed in a sheltered country.

IRRIGATING CANALS.

One of the largest irrigation enterprises in the state is that of the Payette Valley Irrigation & Water Power Company. Diverting water front the Payette about two miles above Emmett, its canal, running close under the foot-hills that di- vide the Payette and Boise valleys, carries water for a distance of about forty miles to all the bench lands of the valley, an acreage in excess of thirty thousand. The cost of construction was about three hundred thousand dollars, an expenditure resulting in the most substantial work, both at the headgates and along the route, and giving every facility for quick and economic deliverance of water. Its capacity will at all times be greater than any probable demand that will be made on it, the intake at the headgates being 556.5 cubic feet per second, or 27,825 miners' inches. There always being plenty of water in the river, those locating under this ca- nal will never lack moisture. This com- pany has sold perpetual water-rights to the lands under it, and charges an annual maintenance fee of one dollar and fifty cents an acre.

The canal was constructed by New York cap- ital, and was completed in the fall of 1893. Water was first turned out to users in the spring of 1804. Settlement under it from that time on has been rapid, seeing established the town of New Ply- mouth, the planting of many hundreds of acres of orchard and the cultivation of thousands of acres of land. At the present rate of progress it will be but a few years at the most until all lands under it will be occupied by permanent settlers.

B. P. Shawhan, at that time treasurer and

member of the board of directors of the Equit- able Securities Company of New York city, was sent to the Payette valley in charge of the con- struction of this canal, and has since remained as president of the company and manager of it. The company has been most active in advancing the interests of the country, advertising widely and promoting permanent improvements.

The lower Payette ditch, which waters those lands of the valley that lie on the north side of the river from a point opposite New Plymouth to one about seven miles below Payette, is a "farm- ers' ditch." having been built and still being operated by the users of water from it. Agitation for its construction was begun in 1881 and the next year a company was incorporated by David and Norval Gorrie, C. T. Williams and S. L. Sparks, with a capital stock of eight thousand dollars, divided into eighty shares. Work was commenced at once and the canal was completed in 1883. Since that time both the size of ditch and the capital stock of the company have been increased until the latter has reached three hun- dred and twenty shares of one hundred dollars each, and the former a carrying capacity that makes it an irrigation enterprise of first magni- tude. Its affairs are managed by a board of directors, and consumers are charged for water at the rate of actual operating expenses assessed pro rata to each share. It is estimated that the average annual cost of water under it for the past five years has been thirty-seven cents an acre. This ditch is of ample size to carry all the water needed under it for many years to come. It also supplies much land above it, the water being raised by means of under-shot wheels. The oper - ation of these wheels is one of the novel and interesting sights of irrigation.

A number of smaller community ditches water the upper end of the valley, and some of its lower stretches mid-way between Emmett and Payette. While no one of them irrigates any considerable amount of land, their aggregate makes a good showing in the total acreage of lands cultivated. Water under them is charged for on the basis of operating expenses.

WASHOE BOTTOM.

West and south of Payette, just across the beautiful river from which that village derives its name, lies Washoe bottom. It is a fine body of land, alluvium and loam, almost entirely bounded by the left bank of the Payette and the right bank of the Snake rivers. It contains about two thousand six hundred acres, four-fifths of which was converted into an island when A. Rossi built a head-gate at the Payette river and constructed a ditch out of a certain "sloo" for the purpose of running logs down to his saw-mill on the Oregon

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Short Line Railroad at Washoe. Through this ditch a large part of the bottom receives its water for irrigation. The Washoe Irrigation and Water Power Company also owns a fine ditch from the Payette, which waters the remaining and larger portion of the land. These ditches will sufficiently irrigate all the land on the bottom at an expense not to exceed twenty cents per acre.

All of the cereals, vegetables, forage plants and fruits of the temperate zone can be produced here in abundance and of special fine quality. Five tons of alfalfa to the acre have been harvested at two cuttings. Thus far, since the settlement of these lands, hay has been the principal crop, much of which is still produced from the native grasses. Orchards, what few we have here, are young and bear in from two to three years from setting. Apples and pears give fair yields at four years from setting of one and two year old trees.

Be it known that the crop of vegetables, grain and hay was less in the season of 1897 (with one exception) than any during the past 13 years, yet it amounted to the following: Hay, 526 tons; wheat, 2,900 bushels; oats, 4,458 bushels; alfalfa seed, 5,000 pounds; potatoes, 36,000; winter squashes, 252,000; tomatoes, 4,500; grapes, 5,- 000; apples, 15,500; peaches, 4,750; prunes, 5,- 000; pears, 1,380; apricots, 800; cherries. 400; and other crops in like proportion. There are also a large number of cattle owned on the bot- tom. In the gravel and sand underlying its fields there is untold wealth. Experts in mining state that gold abounds all through them to a depth of thirty feet to bed-rock. There is an under- flow of water beneath every acre which will facil- itate mining by means of the use of centrifugal pumps, and it is believed that the Snake river valley will in the near future rival the famous Yukon.

WHITLEY BOTTOM.

What is known as Whitley bottom is an area of about three thousand acres lying along the east bank of the Snake river and between it .and the bench lands of Payette valley. Its entire · extent is almost as level as a floor and its surface is but little above that of the river. When the river is running high in the spring, water sets back into a number of channels, forming minia- ture lakes and ponds which afford facilities for irrigation later on. For this reason it was se- lected by the earlier settlers for the location of cattle and hay ranches. Many thousand head of stock have been wintered there in times gone by, and some are yet, but the falling off of the cattle business and the improvement of the high- er lands have enlarged the feeding area once con- fined to the river lands. Whitley bottom is now under the ditch of the Payette Valley Irrigation

and Water Power Company and is a fine tract for general farming.

RECREATION AND SPORT.

Sportsmen who have been used to long jour- neys in search of feathered, furred or scaled game, with indifferent luck at their end, will find hunting and fishing in and about the Payette valley an easy and successful matter. In the ponds and bayous formed by the irrigation ditches, and in the many stretches of still water along the rivers countless thousands of ducks, geese, brant, crane and other game fowls find feeding grounds, winter quarters and breeding places. During the fall of the year the air may be said to be literally filled with them, and they do not entirely disappear until late in the spring. Quail, sage-hen and a species of snipe are also abundant in their season. In the neighboring foothills and in the smaller valleys there are grouse, curlew and various kinds of chicken in numbers at times confusing to the gunner and heating to his gun-barrels.

The divide between the Payette and Boise val- leys is a runway for deer passing to and from winter feeding grounds in the southern valleys of Oregon and summer ones in the high mountains north of the Payette. Many of them are shot during these pilgrimages by men who are less than a half day's ride on horseback from home, and occasionally a band of timid doe, led by an adventurous buck, stray down among the ranches of the lower valley to fall prey to some marksman.

But it is in the timbered and mountainous country northward for an hundred miles and more that the royal sport lies. There may be found deer, elk, antelope, mountain sheep, nu- merons bears of the smaller species, and occasion- ally a fierce grizzly and a timid moose. Big game is becoming more and more scarce, and in the mountains and forests of Idaho are found many of those animals that are extinct in almost every other portion of the continent. The hunting of them in summer and fall gives an invigorating outing that is an experience in itself.

No more charming resort than the Payette lakes, lying as they do sunk deep into snow-cov- ered mountains, their waters as clear and cold as the mountain springs from which they have their source, and their shores and clean, sandy beaches, lined with gigantic pines that stretch far up onto the mountain's sides, can be found any- where; and many spots that are storied in poetry and song are as much less beautiful than they as a cheap print is less beautiful than nature. The arduous toil of the chase can be intermitted there by repose and recreation, and in a thousand other places the tourist may set himself down to an enjoyment of fine vistas, seductive odors, stimu -

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lating waters and an appetite that fears no dish and knows no limit.

All the mountain lakes and streams are more or less filled with that finny delicacy,-the speckled mountain trout-and at certain seasons of the year they are caught in large numbers. In the lakes and rivers, salmon, salmon trout, bull trout and red fish are plenty, to say nothing of less toothsome species that may be caught by the thousands. In the lower rivers salmon are caught, and in the Snake huge sturgeon-some weighing as high as three hundred pounds-are victims of the angler.

A summer spent in the mountains and forests and on the lakes of the country adjacent to the Payette valley will give to the hunter months of such sport as Cooper writes of; will furnish the tourist a series of novelties that will delight the most blase; will afford the searcher for rest and recreation rest that will have permanent value and recreation that will recreate with all the variations of the word's meaning; and will be of more benefit to an invalid than all the nos- trums known.

THE SWINERY.

To review the resources and industries of this valley without making a few remarks about the author of the ham would be to leave the review incomplete. It is believed and frequently as- serted that more hogs can be grown and fattened to a given area of land in the irrigated valleys of this section than at any other place in the world. The magic lies in that greatest of forage plants-alfalfa. It is a fact too common to excite comment that from fifteen to twenty head of hogs can be summered on an acre of it, taken up in the fall and fed corn from twenty to thirty days, and be sent to market in as prime condition for slaughter as any buyer demands. The rais- ing of hogs is also a powerful auxiliary to the growing of fruit. Turned in an orchard they eat all decaying, stunted or infested fruit as it falls, and by continual agitation of the surface · of the soil and rubbing against the trunks of the trees destroy innumerable hiding places for pests of all sorts.

APIARIES.

The busy bee is another important and profit- able prop to the fruit business. Many berries and tree fruits have need to be fertilized front some other of the same family, and the bee is a most potent agent in this work. Every orchard should have its apiary. The country affords every pos- sible inducement for the bee to make honey. Three and four times a season the alfalfa and clo . ver blossom give a harvest that yields a superior product. Alfalfa honey is a special brand in the

west. The countless fruit blossoms are enough to almost set the drones at work, and even the sage-brush puts forth blossoms in the spring that the bee seeks. The country, since the intro- duction of bees, has become filled with wild swarms that have escaped from the home hives through the carelessness of keepers. They seek lodgment in buildings, groves and out of the way places, and as much as fifty to one hundred pounds of honey has frequently been taken from these nomads at the end of the season.

SUGAR BEETS.

No systematic effort has been made to cultivate the sugar beet. Last year, and the one before the experiment station at the state university, at Moscow, sent out a large amount of seed to farmers in various sections of the state for the purpose of testing the adaptability of the soil and climate to it. A number of reports were re- ceived and they were for the most part flattering. The beets grew well, and upon being analyzed showed a percentage of sugar above the profit- able mark. Those grown in the Payette valley averaged with the best, and growing them in large quantities would not be an experiment, but certain to prove as profitable as the beet is at any place.

The sugar beet propaganda is spreading so rapidly that it is not unlikely that a plant will be established in this section in the near future.

PAYETTE VALLEY MERCANTILE CO.

The Payette Valley Mercantile Company, lim- ited, doing business at Payette, Idaho. was organized with twenty thousand dollars cash capi- tal on the Ioth of April, 1891, comprising the following named gentlemen: A. A. Miller, Alex- ander B. Allen, A. E. Gipson, W. G. Whitney, D. C. Chase, H. B. Platt, A. Rossi and S. S. Morris. For their place of business they erected a brick store, thirty by one hundred feet in dimensions and two stories high, all devoted to both the wholesale and retail branches of general mer- chandise. At the organization of the company the officers were: W. G. Whitney, president: A. Rossi, vice-president: D. C. Chase, secretary and treasurer; and A. A. Miller, manager. The pres- ent officers are: W. L. Rider, president and gen- eral manager, and D. C. Chase, secretary and treasurer.

The officers are men of the highest integrity and responsibility, are business men of experi- ence, and their establishment is patronized by a large portion of the community. The citizens feel proud of having such an enterprising com- pany at the head of the principal mercantile inter- est of the town.

J.H. Pchanда.

CHAPTER XXVI.

INDIVIDUAL RECORDS. 4

JAMES H. RICHARDS.

A MONG the prominent lawyers of Boise is Judge James Heber Richards, who has practiced at the bar of this state for nine years, winning an enviable reputation by his eru- dition, his ability to give to each point of a case its due prominence, his force in argument and his mastery of the intricate problems of jurisprud- ence. In a witty after-dinner speech Chauncey M. Depew once said, "Some men achieve great- ness, some men are born great, and some men are born in Ohio." The first and last clauses are both applicable to Judge Richards, who is a na- tive of the Buckeye state, his birth having occurred in the town of Mount Vernon, on the 5th of May, 1852. He is of English and Scotch descent, his ancestors being among the early set- tlers of New York and Ohio. They were enter- prising, progressive business men, and thrifty farmers. The father of the Judge, Daniel Rich- ards, was born in Syracuse, New York, and mar- ried Miss Clarissa Allen, a representative of one of the distinguished families of America. Among its members was Colonel Ethan Allen, who in connection with his "Green Mountain Boys" won fame in the Revolutionary war. Her uncle, I. J. Allen, was an intimate friend of John Sher- man, a journalist of considerable prominence, later was consul to China, and is now writing on the legal department of the new Standard diction- ary. Another uncle, William Allen, "stumped" the state of Illinois in company with Abrahanı Lincoln, and was one of the warmest friends and supporters of the martyred president. Daniel Richards engaged in the manufacture of linseed oil in Ohio, and was also the agent of the Ohio state penitentiary for the sale of its manufactures. He died in 1884, at the age of seventy-eight years, after which his widow came to Idaho with her son, the Judge, and died in Boise, in 1896, at the age of seventy-eight years. They were members of the Congregational church and their

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An illustrated history of the state of Idaho, containing a history of the state of Idaho from the earliest period of its discovery to the present time, together with glimpses of its auspicious future; illustrations and biographical mention of many pioneers and prominent citizens of to-day, Part 55

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1899 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1014

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1899
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1014