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THE RANCH
With which is consolidated
The Washington Farmer,
The Pacific Coast Dairyman,
The Farmer and Dairyman,
The Farmer and Turfman.
Issued Ist and 15th of each month.
PHIL. L. AXLING, Editor
MILLER FREEMAN - - Publisher
Editorial Offices : Seattle, Wash.
Tel. Main 1265—Long Distance Connection.
BUSINESS OFFICES:
Seattle - - - Third Floor Downs Bldg.
Spokane, Alexander & Co., 521 First Aye.
Subscrlption (in advance), one year, 50
cts.; six months, 30 cts. If on time, sub
scription will be one dollar. Seattle sub
scribers are required to pay $1 per year,
on account of local postage.
Agents wanted in every town to solicit
subscriptions. Good commission and sala
ries paid.
The paper is sent to each subscriber until
an order to discontinue is received from the
subscriber. We must be notified in writing,
by letter or postal card, when a subscriber
wishes his paper stopped. Returning the
paper will not answer, as we cannot find it on
our list from the name alone on the paper.
We must have both name and address, and
all arrearages or dues must be paid as re
quired by law.
Date of expiration of subscription is
shown on your paper by address label con
taining your name.
Failing to receive the paper regularly you
should notify the Seattle office at once,
when mistakes, if any, will be corrected.
Address all communications to THE
RANCH, Downs Bldg, Seattle, Washington.
NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
During the past few weeks the mail
ing lists of The Ranch have been re
vised. The work has been done thor
oughly, but there may still be some er
rors, which we are anxious to correct.
We suggest that our subscribers look
at their address labels and if there is
any error in the date write to the Se
attle office at once, stating the case.
In addition, note whether or not you
are in arrears. Remember that those
who pay in advance save half the sub
scription price by so doing. It is
worth a special effort on your part to
keep your subscripiion paid up.
That is certainly a fine number is
sued by the North Pacific Rural Spirit,
of Portland, in honor of the National
Livestock asociation, which has been
in session in that city from the 12th
to the 15th of this month.
Owing to circumstances over which
we had no control many of the papers
read at the state dairymen's conven
tion did not reach us. It was our pur
pose to print every address for which
space could be provided. We hope to
secure them for future issues.
If you are not a subscriber to The
Ranch you are missing much valuable
information pertinent to your interests
on the ranch. This paper costs you
only fifty cents a year, in advance,
and there is no reason why you should
not have it, be you ever so little inter
ested in agriculture of any kind.
The Ranch would welcome sugges
tions from its many readers for the
improvement of the paper. We want
all to feel free to write to the editor —
and articles of pertinent interest and
value will be gladly published. Write
out what you know or think. We will
put it in good shape for publication.
This number of The Ranch will go aggregated 46,699 students, of whom
to numbers of readers who are not 6,299 were in agricultural courses,
now on the books as subscribers. It The graduates of these institutions in
is through the courtesy of the Hazel- 1902 were 4,443 and since their organ
wood Cream Company, of Seattle, ization over 50,000. Considerable ad-
Spokane and Portland, that The Ranch vancement is reported in the way of
reaches so many new readers this secondary and elementary schools of
time. The inference is natural that agriculture. The agricultural high
they will read it through—advertise- schools of Wisconsin have been so suc
ments and all. This is eminently a cessful that a provision has been made
dairy and creamery number and as for an increased number by the state
such is of particular interest to the legislature. Schools are about to open
thousands of dairymen who will get in California and Massachusetts, and in
i,. Just here let us make a sugges
tion to these men. The supposition,
of course, is that they are progressive
and anxious to get the best that will
be of assistance in their work. A
good paper devoted largely to their
interest is a necessity—and it is
imperative that a publication dealing
with conditions in the dairy and farm
ing lines as they exist in the north
west should be had. Such a publica
tion is The Ranch. The price is but
50 cents a year, in advance. The
wise ones will take the hint and
swamp the office with subscription or
ders.
Our country must have the Parcels
Post. The rates we have to pay to
day for sending a small package a
hundred or a thousand miles are too
high altogether. Congress has already
put itself on record as in favor of
the Parcels Post, but the authorities
are slow to act. But one example is
needed to show that the new method
of forwarding small packages is an
imperative necessity. If you want to
send a package weighing eleven
pounds from here to New York city
the charges will be about $2.40. The
postofflce will not accept so heavy a
package, so you must go to the ex
press office. This rate you must pay
as an American. Were you a for
eigner living on the other side of the
sea and desired to send such a pack
age from London or Hamburg to some
friend on the Pacific coast the ser-
For Our Non-Subscribers
This issue of The Ranch will be read by thousands of dairymen and ranchers
throughout the Northwest, who are not regular subscriber s. Many of them, per
chance, have not seen a copy of the publication. Others have seen it, but for
one reason or another have neglected to send in the requisite four-bits to get it
a full year. To all of these the publishers make the suggestion that now is the
best time to send in your order. We are never too overstocked with subscription
orders but what we can take care of a few more. The price of subscription to
The Ranch is only 50 cents a year, in advance, but the value to the subscriber is
many times fifty cents in information that can be utilized in divers ways on the
ranch toward swelling the pocketbook.
The publishers are making arrangements for greatly improving The Ranch
during the current year. Several new features will be added and a large staff of
contributors will be secured. Articles pertinent to the farming industry in the
Northwest will be made a special feature. These, combined with the ridiculously
low subscription price, are the best argument why all those non-subscribers who
receive a copy of this number should send in their orders at once. Half a dollar
is a small sum and pays for the paper one year—still, if you would rather make
a six months' trial before becoming permanently enrolled, send us 30 cents for
the paper for six months.
In another part of the paper you will find a subscription order blank for
convenience in ordering. Fill it out, enclose your money, in stamps or postal
money order, and send to The Ranch, 3(J Downs Block, Seattle.
vice would cost you but 58 cents.
Why this great discrepancy? The ex
planation is simple. The British post
office department has made arrange
ments with a private express com
pany in this country to handle such
packages on a 25-cent basis, up to
eleven pounds, from New York to
any postoffice in the United States.
This privilege is accorded only to for
eigners. The arrangement is the Par
cels Post independent of the United
States postoffice department. There
is no reason why our government can
not inaugurate the regular domestic
Parcels Post at once. A letter to
your congressman, urging him to have
the government take action at an
early day, would be a good thing.
The movement to give every stu
dent at public schools a chance to
study agricultural topics is growing in
favor. During the year of 1902 the at
tendance at the land grant colleges
THE RANCH.
the report of the association of the
American agricultural colleges and ex
periment stations is strongly recom
mended the introduction of courses in
agriculture into the high schools. The
department is now equipped with a
farmers' institute specialist, and is
preparing to render practical aid to
the important work of farmers' insti
tutes throughout the country.
Rural free delivery has made a
phenomenal growth in the past three
or four years. Washington is up with
the procession and will slay there.
She has a good many of the 20,000
new routes that have been established
the past two years, and will receive
a proportionate share of the same
number that it is the intention of
the department to establish during
the current year. It has been im
possible to meet the request of every
community that thought itself enti
tled to a free delivery service, but as
fast as the department can come
around to it the routes are put into
operation, provided investigation bears
out the claims of the applicants.
This is the time when congressmen
neglect their official duties to attend
to the distributing of free seeds among
their dear constituents. This perfid
ous habit will not down so long as the
present laws remain on the books.
But there is another factor that en
courages the practice. It is the will
ingness of farmers of average intelli-
gence to accept these musty old seeds
from their congressmen, rather than
throw them into the fire and purchase
seeds that are known to be of last
years' crop. It seldom happens that
the seeds sent broadcast by the gov
ernment prove fertile in sufficient de
gree to warrant any one wasting good
land and valuable time trying to raise
a crop from them. It is well for the
government to secure and distribute a
limited quantity of seeds of rare and
new plants, for experimental purposes,
but the present plan of alloting to
each congressman several hundred
pounds of old seeds and an unlimited
supply of franked envelopes is entire
ly wrong. In addition to supplying
the farmers with worthless seeds in
this way the government is coming
into direct competition with private
business enterprise—the seed houses.
There does not seem to be much
prospect for the state of Washington
soon securing a slice of that money
Congress set aside for irrigation pro
jects in the different western states.
It has been reported that this state
will have to wait at least a year be
fore anything is actually undertaken,
the reason given being that the most
feasible scheme will call for such a
large expenditure that the funds al- •
lotted to this state will be insufficient i
and more money must be voted before '
the work can be put under way. j
These reports have set the people in
the so-called arid sections to action.
Various chambers of commerce and
other public bodies have asked Gover
nor Mcßride to appoint a commission,
whose duty it shall be to prepare au
irrigation bill for introduction at the
next session of the legislature. It is
felt there is great need of state laws
that will enable the work of the gov
ernment to be carried out, as well as
to encourage private enterprise along
the line of reclamation of arid lands.
The national irrigation authorities
suggested that the various commercial
bodies interested take such a move.
In response to the request, the gover
nor has made a favorable reply, say
ing he will appoint such a commission
provided competent men can be found
to take hold of the work and trust to
the next legislature for their compen
sation. There is no statute authoriz
ing the governor to take such a step,
nor are there any'funds available for
meeting the expenses of such a com
mission. The work, however, appears
of so great importance that the nexi'
legislature ought to be willing to au
thorize the money for such a purpose.
From all accounts it would seem
there is no room for the pessimist
today. The new year has been ush
ered in with the brightest prospects
for the future. In every section of
the country the feeling is unanimous
that 1904 will see even greater pros
perity than did 1903. Men of wide
' experience in the financial world, pos
sessed of keen observation and with
the disposition to judge impartially,
say a panic is so remote, if one is
coming, that the man of today need
not bother his head about it. We have
such men right here in Seattle. One
of them is James A. Moore, president
of the Moore Investment Company,
and owner of the Washington hotel.
Mr. Moore has just returned from
an extended trip in the east, where
he made a close study of conditions
in the principal financial centers.
Everywhere he found an optimistic
feeling regarding the future. He
talked with men well posted on con
ditions and invariably found a con
census of opinion regarding the rea
sons for the present good times and
the utter improbability of a panic
coming. "The principal reason given
by leading financiers to show why a
panic is impossible," said Mr. Moore
upon his return, "is the prosperous
condition of the farmers. Never in
the history of the United States have
the farming communities been so pros
perous as at present—with mortgages
paid off and millions of money in the
country banks —with good crops and
continued high prices for everything
the ground produces, the land owner
is in a position he never before at
tained in this country or in any other."
Here we have the situation in a nut
shell —and it ought to be very grati
fying, indeed, to those who are so
fortunate as to belong to the farm
ing class.
Fred Wahn, of Black Diamond, is
now prepared to supply 18-foot hop
poles in carload lots. These poles
are used mostly east of the Cascades.
They are put far apart for permanent
use, wires are stretched from top to
top and from these strings are carried
down to the plants. This, Mr. Wahn
says, is a great improvement over
the old style short poles. About 400
of them will make a carload. Mr.
Wahn's nearest station is Enumclaw.
The McMillan Fur & Wool Co. of
Minneapolis, Minn., places an adver
tisement in this issue of The Ranch.
This is a reliable concern, having
been in business over a quarter ol"
a century, and on account of their ex
tensive business they are in position
to pay high prices. Shippers find their
dealings with them very satisfactory.
They have issued a new circular cov
ering the trade and prices, and will
send one to any address on applica
tion.
