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THE RANCH
p£fy
yeXr.
WEEKLY.
A Journal of The Land and Ihe Home in fhc N¥io West.
VOL .1. NO. i.
Prospects.
Tub Ranch seeks to promote the mate
rial interests of the newer West and the
happiness and thrift of its people. Its
methods evaporate the water and leave
the meat. It isnon partisan. The editors
don't know it all: they seek information
from all sources for discussion on com
mon ground in these columns. The
Ranch shall be clean and wholesome
from tip to tip. Let it speak for itself.
Capital: not great capital in the hands
of a few, but distributed among many, is
the great need of all new states. A thou
sand men with $500 to $1,000 each will
ao Washington infinitely more good
make for progress and development a
hundredfold faster than a score of capit
alists with a million apiece. The thou
sand make business for the transportation
companies, make trade for the merchants,
occupy the land, develop our agriculture
and the lesser industries with a speed
that great capital in few hands may not
even emulate and indeed is Worthless
without the thousand. And, in fact,
these leaser but relatively stronger men
are slipping in now day by day, all un
heralded nul unnoticed, quietly looking
about and picking up_Tsnaps" here and
there, proposing to stay in the'countiy
and work their pickings-up for all they
are worth ; not stowing their money away
in great propositions and going back east
to wait for the workers to dig out and
send then* the profits. We welcome the
capitalists, but they are bright and wise
and sure to como. We rejoice with great
joy at the coming of the thousand thrifty,
energetic farmers and mechanics with
modest but more helpful saving*. Here
the gates of Industry are wide open : the
coffers of Success ajar, waiting for bright
workers to take possession.
The comparative great prosperity of the
Pacific northwest, and of Washington in
particular, is attracting most careful at
tention throughout all the east, from the
Kockies to the St. Croix river; from the
Alamo to the heights of Quebec. People
'out here think times are bard, but to one
who has studied the financial conditions
in the east, business and things in gener
al look in very fine shape and highly
promising for the near future. Miners
are growling, but are picking up their
tools and making ready to peg away as
Boon as weather will permit them. New
jgrftiit elevators at Seattle are being
JANUARY, 2e, 1894.
crowded froiu elections that never before
shipped grain. Tacoma shipments con
stantly increase. Merchauts are selling
car loads and reporting fair collections,
where the growl of "hard times" has been
deep and hoarse. Local markets are re
ceiving produce from lands new to the
plow. Farmers in nearly all sections of
Washington, Oregon and California are
doing well—better than the'r eastern
hi others. When they cry hard times it
is mostly due to extravagance or to rriis
management, or bad roads; and the les
sons of the year will but aid to proper
methods and greater progress in the future.
# * *
Col. Pope for his bicycles, John Farmer
for easy and cheap marketing, Jack Mer
chant for more trade, and all the rebt of
the world for comfort's sake are interested
in getting the wheels out of the mud and
ruts onto a smooth and hard roadbed.
Gov. McGraw told in graphL* speech at
the Olympia road meeting about the early
efforts to involve Uncle Sam in building
national roads, apparently with a tinge of
regret at the failure. Never mind, gov
ernor, the convention laid out work
enough to make you forget ill that. Now
we modestly suggest a better scheme
than any of them. If Thk Ranch had
been born a year or two sooner it might
have unloaded this at the convention.
But here it is: Why not build state roads
from state capital to state capital? Wash
ington would build a macadamized high
way from Olympia toward Boise by the
most direct and cheapest route; also one
to Portland. Idaho and Oregon would
meet us at ihe state line with similar
roads. Then let each county build roads
from its county seat to the county line to
join like roads from the other county
seats. A state road commission could do
all the surveying and laying out of the
state roads; and also of the county roads.
The entire expense should be borne by
the community as a whole, and not by
abutting property holders, save that land
owners adjoinging would of course be
glad to give the land for tne purpose.
Why not?
■» » #
Is the football craze become so much a
gladatorial combat, and gambling sport
as to keep the sons of men of high moral
ity and modest means away from the
great colleges, as suggested by The
Nation f If so, it is high time a halt wfre
calle'l along the whole line, and a warn
ing sounded at the smaller and newer
colleges that they too, may Uarn the
lesson without the expense. Public show,
Copyrighted,
l«»l, by K. H. Libby.
and exploiting of our boys in the press
before their teeth are fairly cut is not
what education is for. "The wealthy are
going to collage in greater aud greater
numbers, but it is not they who keep
alive the traditions of American scholar*
ship, or show the world what a college ,
education can do by way oi preparation
for lite.' Athletic sports are all right
when kept within the limits of healthful
exercise tor body and mind. Beyond
that, in the pale of the circus, menagerie
and prize ring, they have no place.
Hard times and extravagance make
Uncle Sam short in his income a few
millions, so he is hunting around for an
increase. As it is all in the family, of
course the plain people will help him out.
There's money enough. The only ques
tion is how to make it change hands.
About the best way for the present emer
gency that The Ranch has seen proposed
is for the government to issue treasury
notes bearing a low rate of interest, sub
ject to being called in on short notice.
The interest would be only enough to
make them change hands easily at par.
They would not be legal tender, but would
of course be readily accepted by any one
in lieu of money. A similar custom is in
vogue in England during like emergencies,
aud it is said to work well.
Freshens that do not result in washouts
are in nowise to be deplored. Really they
benefit rather than damage. The Decem
ber overflows in White, Green, Vuyallup,
Sk*git, Snohomish and other valleys were
blessings undisguised, except in individ
ual cases. These fresbests in the past
made those valleys the gardens that they
are. Now that things are brought under
cultivation, these Hoods keep up the fer
tility more certainly, more uniformly and
more cheaply than any artificial fertilizer
could do, no matter how scientifically ap
plied. A thousand years of cropping
cannot diminish the productiveness of
these lands so long as the melting snows
of the mountain ranges annually bring
down life-giving plant-tood in such un
stinted abundance.
A. D. 1894 opens well iv the Tacilic
northwest. Confidence means trade.
Brisk exchange of products means pros
perity. Seattle and Tacoma merchants
and manufacturers say that free lumber
will mean sharper competition. B. C.
will not jret away with U. 8. markets.
Oogt of production will settle that; if too
THE
TRUTH
IS
ENOUGH
