An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 74

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146

USA > Washington > Kittitas County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 74
USA > Washington > Yakima County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 74
USA > Washington > Klickitat County > An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington > Part 74

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

In 1895 the survey for a large canal, called the Naches and Columbia River irrigation canal, was made under the direction of the state arid land commission, formed after the passage of the Carey act. The intake of this canal was to be at the north side of Naches river, three miles below the head of the Selah Valley canal. The canal was to cross Yakima river a short distance above the mouth of Naches river, by means of an im- mense inverted siphon, circle Moxee valley, pass through the ridge east of Union Gap by a tunnel six thousand one hundred feet long, and continue down Yakima valley to Rattlesnake mountain, around which it was to pass to lands overlooking Columbia river. It was to be a hun- dred and forty miles long and to carry at its head two thousand second-feet of water. The intention was to use the Bumping lake storage reservoir. No work has been done on the canal.

A few years ago a survey was made for a canal called the Burlingame canal, which was to take water from the south side of Naches river just below the mouth of Tietan river, and carry it around into Ahtanum valley, thence around Ahtanum ridge, to the bench lands op- posite Toppenish creek on the Yakima Indian reserva- tion. About three miles of construction work was done on this canal near its head. The canal as far down as Pictured Rocks would be expensive to construct on ac- count of the andesitic formation through which it would pass, and doubtless would be very expensive to maintain.

Mention may here be made of four canals which take water from the Yakima river nearly opposite the mouth of Naches river and constitute irrigation supplies for the lower part of Moxee valley, just southeast of the city of North Yakima. These are the Selah-Moxee canal recently constructed, the Moxee Company's canal, the Hubbard ditch and the Fowler ditch. The last three

irrigate about three thousand acres; the Selah-Moxee irrigates about five thousand acres.

Much larger than any of these canals is that of the Washington Irrigation Company, known as the Sunnyside ditch. It is claimed by Walter N. Granger to be the fourth largest irrigation system in the United States and the largest in the North- west. Up to the present time approximately in figures $1,700,000 have been expended upon it. The canal has its intake on the north bank of the Yak- ima river, seven and a half miles southeast of North Yakima, where at an expenditure of $40,000, · head-gates of stone and concrete, supporting what is known as a falling steel dam, have been con- structed. From this point the main canal follows the side of the Columbia river divide fifty miles in a southeasterly direction to a place opposite Pros- ser. The lower altitudes are covered by a system of laterals and smaller branches aggregating be- tween 600 and 700 miles in length. One of the largest of these laterals winds around Snipes moun- tain, irrigating its lower or southern slope. The dimensions of the main canal at its upper end are : Top width, sixty-two and a half feet; bottom width, thirty feet; banks, eight feet in height, de- signed to carry a depth of six feet ; initial capacity, eight hundred second-feet. The canal covers an area of 64,000 acres of irrigable land, of which per- haps 32,000 are now in cultivation. The water duty in the Sunnyside region is estimated to one second-foot the quarter section, or an aggregate depth during the season of thirty-five vertical inches. This amount with the annual rainfall of from six to eight inches gives sufficient water to raise any crop that can be grown in this latitude. It is said that the soil is remarkably free from alkali; also that over a very large area it will aver- age more than a hundred feet in depth. From time to time the canal has been improved until now it has practically no fluming along its entire length, though of course there are scores of miles of flume work in its laterals. A feature of the construction work is its unexcelled pattern of head-gates. The company proposes to enlarge and extend the canal to cover an additional area of 150,000 acres lying along the Yakima, the slope of Rattlesnake range and the Columbia river slope. As yet, however, no plans have been matured. The annual maintenance fee charged is one dollar per acre, one of the lowest rates in force anywhere in the west. The com- pany's offices are situated at Zillah, some twelve miles down the canal from the head-gates, and its present officers are: President, William L. Ladd, Portland ; Vice-President, George Donald, North Yakima; Treasurer, R. H. Denny, Seattle; Secre- tary, John S. Bleecker, Seattle; Attorney, E. F. Blaine, Seattle; General Superintendent, Walter N. Granger, Zillah; Cashier, Charles F. Bailey, Zillah ; Chief Engineer, R. K. Tiffany, Zillah; Water Superintendent, W. S. Douglass, Zillah.

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The valley between the forks of Cowiche creek has the distinction of being watered by the first con- structed and probably the only actually completed storage reservoir in the state. The construction of this was rendered necessary by the fact that the forks mentioned do not head far enough back towards the mountain to supply sufficient water for the extensive areas of alluvial land between them. Unfortunately the reservoir, which is situated on the plateau between Cowiche creek and Naches river, has not sufficient capacity to irrigate more than a small part of the lands under it.

The next irrigation stream as we pass down the Yakima valley is Ahtanum creek, traversing a rich and fertile valley that furnishes homes to scores of well-to-do farmers. The Ahtanum basin was one of the earliest settled portions of the county. Though its soil is not specially bibacious and re- quires less water than many other soils in central Washington, yet the summer flow is completely utilized for irrigation purposes. Indeed there is a scarcity of water, and as is usually the case under such conditions, some litigation has resulted. A number of attempts have been made to find means to increase the water supply of the valley. In the fall of 1898, Cyrus C. Babb made a thorough ex- ploration of the upper basin of Ahtanum creek in quest of reservoir sites, hoping that the water which passes down during the spring freshet might be conserved for the use of the farmer, but his recon- noissance failed to reveal the existence of any such that were really suitable. Two years later Sidney Arnold sought a solution of the Ahtanum irrigation problem by reconnoitering the Klickitat basin to as- certain whether or not the waters of some of the tributaries of Klickitat river might be led across the divide into Ahtanum valley. His investigation "showed the futility of any. diversion from the Klickitat basin into the Ahtanum basin. Gold Fork is lower by at least a thousand feet than the lowest elevation of the divide between it and Ahtanum creek. The lowest point of the divide between the Tietan and Gold Fork, as shown by leveling, is lower by several hundred feet than any point on the Ahtanum-Klickitat divide, so that none of the waters of Gold creek can be carried over to Ahtanum creek."

Lower down the valley on the west side of the Yakima river is the reservoir system of canals which according to report of the State Bureau of Statistics covered 51,000 acres of land, and below this again is the recently constructed Kennewick ditch, a splen- did canal, covering between 12,000 and 15,000 acres of the lower Yakima valley.

One of the most interesting if not one of the most extensive and important irrigation areas in Yakima county is the artesian well basin of the Moxee valley. The principal wells are shown by a government plat to be within an extent of territory aggregating not more than six square miles. In this limited area over thirty wells have been sunk in

the past ten or twelve years, varying from about six hundred to twelve or thirteen hundred feet in depth. According to a government report the Deeringhoff well, the most important in the basin, was credited at the time of its completion in 1900 with a flow of fifty-six cubic inches. The lands irrigated by all the wells of the basin are shown by the report of the State Bureau of Statistics to have aggregated 2,900,015 acres in 1903.

A general idea of the extent of irrigation in Yakima county, actually accomplished and projected, is furnished by a table in the publication last cited. It shows canals constructed in the upper Yakima valley, as follows: Moxee ditches covering 3,000 acres; Congdon ditch covering 3,000 acres; Selah valley ditch, 5,000 acres ; Wenas creek, 10,000 acres; Naches and Cowiche, 3,000; Ahtanum valley, 13,500; Naches valley, 15,000; Washington Irriga- tion Company's canal, 6,500; artesian wells, 2,915; proposed ditches with the acreage they would cover in the upper valley: Congdon ditch extension, 1,200 acres; . Selah valley ditch extension, 1,000; Selah valley high line ditch, 20,000; Sunnyside high line ditch, 5,000; Tietan and Cowiche ditch, 30,000. Of the 74,915 under ditch in the upper valley, 63,115 are shown by the report as under cultivation. The ditches in operation in the lower valley, with the acreage covered by each, are, according to this authority as follows: Reservation systems, 51,000 acres; sub-irrigated lands on reservation, 15,000 acres; Sunnyside canal, 64,000 acres; Prosser Falls ditch, 2,000 acres; Kiona ditch, 3,500 acres; Ken- newick ditch, 12,000 acres; lower Yakima ditch, 8,000 acres ; total, 150,500 acres, of which approxi- mately 47,600 acres are in cultivation. The proposed ditches in this part are: High line Sunnyside ditch covering 285,000 acres; Prosser Falls extension 1,000 acres; on the reservation: High line from Union Gap (in course of construction at present) 100,000 acres ; Simcoe and Toppenish, 7,000 acres ; other proposed ditches, 10,000 acres.

From the foregoing it will be seen that, should all the proposed canals be completed, 690,615 acres of land in Yakima county could be irrigated. It ap- pears from the report that of this extensive area only 230,415 acres are under ditch at present, and that only about 110,715 acres are actually in culti- vation. It is very evident that the development of the possibilities of irrigation in Yakima county has not more than well begun, and that splendid as are the achievements of the past, they will be dwarfed by those of the future. All these proposed ditches are considered feasible by competent engineers and fur- ther reconnoissances may bring to light practical routes for other canals not thought of at the pres- ent time. The water supply is abundant, if the diffi- culties in the way of its distribution can be over- come. "There is more than enough water flowing through Yakima county," says Major J. A. Powell, director of the United States geological survey, "to irrigate every acre of arable land, and in this re-

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spect the Yakima valley is exceptionally and es- pecially favored, as its water supply is superior to that of any other region in the west, with but one exception, Boise, Idaho. People can appreciate what this blessing means when they realize the fact that in states like Arizona and Nevada if every drop of running surface water was utilized during the irri- gation season, there would not be sufficient to re- claim more than one-half of one per cent of the arid land of those states."

An interesting feature of irrigation work in the Yakima country is the reclamation by the govern- ment of a tract of alkali land, lying two and a half miles south of North Yakima. In this tract are twenty-two acres that two years ago were consid- ered fit only for grazing, but by means of the methods used by the Bureau of Soils, Department of Agriculture, fully seventy-five per cent. of the deadly alkali salts have now been removed and be- fore the close of this year (1904) the land will be practically restored to its normal condition at a reasonable cost. This result, so important in its lesson to the people of all irrigated regions, where the alkali problem sooner or later must be met and solved, has been accomplished by a thorough sys- tem of drainage and by constant leaching of the soil. The reclamation of alkali lands is a branch of work still in its infancy, the Yakima country being one of the first sections to be favored by a govern- ment experiment station. L. Carl Holmes, of the reclamation service, has been in charge of the Yakima experiment since its beginning and to his untiring efforts much of its success is due.

The capabilities of this favored section of our state for human sustenance and wealth production, when all its resources shall have been developed, may be estimated from its productive power under present conditions. One of the most important of irrigated crops in the county is alfalfa, which, ac- cording to reports of the department of agriculture, reaches its highest perfection here, the tonnage per acre of the first crop being 3.4 as against one ton in Rhode Island. Three crops are regularly cut in the county, though four may be obtained in the warmest sections, and perhaps not more than two in some of the colder valleys. It is claimed that the ordinary annual yield is seven to nine tons per acre, and that as high as ten and a half have been cut. The county is a heavy exporter of alfalfa and tim- othy, but much of its product is utilized at home in the feeding of sheep, cattle, hogs and horses. To it must the farmer look for the keeping alive of those master industries of primeval Yakima, cattle and sheep raising, and for the rendering available under present conditions of the wealth of pasturage still existing in hill and mountain. The remaining range lands form a splendid supplement to the culti- vated grasses in the feeding of stock, but the day when the gratuitous bounties of nature can be de- pended upon unaided or almost so for the suste- nance of domestic animals is now far in the past. In

order to make the cattle business pay the stockman must realize a greater return from each animal than was necessary under the old regime, and this he is doing by keeping finer and more profitable breeds of beef cattle and in many instances by elaborating the products of his herd by making butter and cheese, or by selling the milk. The state food com- missioner, E. O. McDonald, is authority for the statement that on December 1, 1903, there were six individual, one farm and two co-operative cream- eries in the county, and that their aggregate prod- uct was 415,425 pounds of butter. No statistics of the manufacture of cheese in the county are at hand, neither are data available for estimating its product of butter other than made in the creameries, but the amount of ranch butter produced is very considerable.

"Yakima is the banner county for sheep raising in the state," says the report of the Bureau of Sta- tistics, Agriculture and Irrigation, "it having ac- cording to the last assessment 153,228 of these animals." The sheep industry so far has not un- dergone much change since its first introduction into the county over three decades ago. Of course, the sheep range has been continually narrowing by the settlement and development of the country, as has the range for cattle, but the only result of this dimi- nution of the open areas has been the curtailment of the industry and the necessity for the feeding of more alfalfa. The Cascade range has so far fur- nished pasture for these thousands of wool bearers but the difficulty of securing summer feed is increas- ing every year, owing largely to restrictions im- posed by our government upon ranging in forest reserves; and perhaps the day is not far distant when wool growing must cease to be an important industry of the county. It is not unlikely that the raising of the mutton breeds upon alfalfa hay and enclosed alfalfa pastures will be found profitable, as the price of mutton is always remunerative to the producer and the market good. The number and value of different species of live stock in the county as shown by the latest assessment roll is as follows: Horses and mules, 7,441, valued at $148,- 820; cattle, 19,388, valued at $309,408; sheep, 153,- 288, valued at $306,456; hogs, 2,065, valued at $6,195.

Hops are a very important crop of Yakima county's irrigated acres. The product is of superior quality, being rich in lupulin, and the yield is pro- lific. It is estimated that about 2.000 acres are de- voted to hop raising in the county, yielding 1,400 tons annually. The average selling price of last year's crop was perhaps in excess of twenty cents a pound ; so that the income of the hop raisers for the season may be estimated at more than $600,000. It may be admitted, however, that the prices received by the growers fluctuate greatly from year to year and that the industry is sometimes not very profita- ble. The cost of setting out an acre of hops, includ- ing the value of the land and the cost of the neces-

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sary dry kilns, etc., is said to be about $200 and the expense of putting the hops in the bale will amount to eight cents a pound. The hop picking season is a semi-holiday time in Yakima county, as elsewhere in the state, furnishing a healthful and pleasurable outing as well as considerable profit to those who can spend a month or two among the beautiful vines. The Indians enjoy the season immensely, making it the occasion of much sport and gambling and the display of savage finery. A more pictur- esque scene can hardly be imagined than is fur- nished by the streets of North Yakima every Sunday during this period of the year.

"The quality of the Yakima hop," says a North Yakima commercial club publication, "is acknow !- edged to be the equal of any produced in America, and there is, therefore, a large demand for them in foreign as well as in home markets. Large ship- ments are made to London, but by far the larger part of the crop finds a market in the cities of the east.

"It has never been necessary to resort to spray- ing to rid the vines of the vermin that infest them; this eliminates a considerable item of the cost of pro- duction. The average yield is about 1,700 pounds per acre ; that of the state of New York is about 800 pounds per acre and that of England still less; it is therefore confidently predicted that the Pacific coast will soon produce all of the hops grown in the United States ; and if this prediction comes true, the production of Yakima county will be largely increased."

At the prices which obtained last year, the aver- age profits per acre of Yakima hop lands must have exceeded two hundred dollars.

Another staple product of the irrigated lands of Yakima county is the potato. The yield is said to average two hundred and sixty bushels per acre but in a number of instances, between five and six hundred bushels have been harvested. While the price last year was low, from seven to ten dollars per ton, and the profits of course much reduced in consequence, it is claimed that the average price is twelve to thirteen dollars per ton, and that splen- did profits can be secured at these figures. In 1901 the price ranged from twenty-two to twenty-seven dollars per ton. In the warm portion of Yakima county, the raising of sweet potatoes is receiving considerable attention, and not a little success is at- tending efforts to produce profitably this semi-tropi- cal plant.

But one of the most important industries of the county and the one which, perhaps, has the greatest promise for the future is horticulture. "In central Washington," says the last report of the State Bu- rean of Statistics, Agriculture and Irrigation, "we find five special centers of horticultural industry. They may be named in order of amount of output as follows: 1. Yakima valley and lateral branches from Wenas to Kennewick. 2. The Wenatchee in Chelan county. 3. The portions of Klickitat county

bordering on the Columbia river. 4. Lake Chelan. 5. The Kittitas valley. Yakima valley far exceeds any of the others, in fact all com- bined, in acreage and in amount of value of prod- ucts." The leading fruit regions of the county are Sunnyside, Zillah and Parker Bottom and the arte- sian area of the Moxee. The profits of fruit culture are enormous, in some instances almost incredible. In the winters of 1900, 1901 and 1902 the Wash- ington Irrigation Company sent out a number of re- quests for information as to the profits of individual farms under their canal. The replies they received were in many instances astonishing. One letter read as follows :

"Zillah, Washington, February 7, 1902. "Washington Irrigation Company; "Zillah, Washington.

"Gentlemen :- Ten years ago last August I bought eighty acres of land under the Sunnyside canal. I paid twenty-five dollars per acre for the land with the water right. My purpose was to go into the fruit growing business. Accordingly I set out twelve hundred peach trees in the spring of 1892. I put my sons on the land and furnished the capital to start a small nursery. We raised our own trees, except the peach trees mentioned above. Have now three thousand apple trees, some pears, cherries, plums, prunes and apricots, in all about five thou- sand trees. I would not take two hundred dollars an acre for the land now, for the amount, $16,000 at ten per cent. would not pay as much as the farm.

"Some years are more profitable than others, but the average is high. The past year was one of the most favorable in the history of the valley. If I knew I could have such a year once in five years, and make expenses the other four years, I should consider the fruit business a profitable one; but I know from experience that I can do far better than that.

"My peach crop was light the past season, but the apple crop heavy. I keep an accurate account of all receipts for fruit sold, and find that I received in cash, so far this year, $5,070.73. I have two cars of apples sent out and not reported upon that will bring at least a thousand dollars; then I have about 7,000 boxes of apples on hand that will bring me about $8.000. The total receipts will be about $14,000. All expenses can be paid for $4,000; leaving me net $10,000. My fruit ranch is not for sale at any price.

"Yours respectfully, F. Walden."

When such profits are to be had in the industry, it is not surprising that the acreage devoted to hor- ticulture is increasing rapidly. Already Yakima county leads the state in the amount of horticul- tural products shipped out, having surpassed Walla Walla and Whitman counties during the year 1902. Vegetables are produced in large quantities, quite

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extensive areas in the Indian reservation being leased by whites and devoted to the culture of po- tatoes, onions, tomatoes, melons, etc. The small fruits are a success, but statistics of yields and profits are not available. The Kennewick country which has recently come into special prominence by reason of the completion of the Northern Pa- cific Irrigation Company's canal, bids fair to lead all other sections of the Northwest in the matter of early strawberries, its warm climate and the brevity of its winter season giving it a great ad- vantage. Its people claim that it can outdo even the famous Hood River region, of Oregon, in the race to be first in the market with strawberries.

While cattle, sheep, horses, hogs, hay, hops, po- tatoes, fruit and vegetables are the staple products of Yakima county, several minor industries swell considerably the profits of the farmer and add to his large balance in the overflowing local banks. Many of the smaller agriculturists and horticulturists are keeping bees to sip the honey from alfalfa, fruit blossoms, sage and such other flowering plants as grow in the region. Barnyard fowls are as common here as in other farming communities. The local markets offer splendid inducements for the rearing of chickens, geese, ducks, and turkeys, the first mentioned being especially profitable both for their meat and their eggs. The local demand is not sup- plied at present and during the winter season it is impossible sometimes to secure fresh ranch eggs at any price. The possibilities of the poultry bus- iness in the Yakima valley have hardly begun to be developed, and to the extension of the industry the farmer is impelled by the same incentives furnished by all other agricultural pursuits, namely, unlimited demand at good prices.

As before stated, the unirrigated sections of the county are useful for the pasture they still furnish, after having fed thousands of sheep, cattle and horses for four decades. Some of them have proved themselves worthy of cultivation, and are rewarding the industry of the plowman by pouring into his garners thousands of bushels of wheat an- nually. The areas devoted to wheat are the upper portions of some of the small valleys, the plateau known as the Rattlesnake hills and the Horse Heaven country. The last mentioned is by far the most extensive and important wheat belt constituting the southeastern part of the county and extending into Klickitat. While the soil is rich and well adapted to wheat raising, the annual precipitation is not sufficient to insure a large yield. Indeed in many parts water has to be hauled for domestic purposes. But by supplying themselves with the most im- proved labor saving machinery and getting control of large tracts to each individual, the Horse Heaven farmers are making the production of wheat profit- able. It is said that the methods of plowing, seed- ing and harvesting are such that the farmer can re- alize a handsome profit on a crop of ten bushels to the acre. Of course he must own several hundred

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An illustrated history of Klickitat, Yakima and Kittitas counties; with an outline of the early history of the state of Washington, Part 74

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1904 Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company Number of Pages: 1146

Author: Interstate publishing co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1904
Publisher: [Chicago] Interstate publishing company
Number of Pages: 1146