THE WEST SHORE.
There aro a great many quarter sections
open to settlement which, by the records
of the U. S. land office, appear to be
token up. They have been filed upon
by parties not able to make proof, and.
aro subject to entry again by any one
who has not exhausted his righ's. A
little patience in looking up such cases
will reward a settler. There is a class
of shiftless men here, as elsewhere, who
are always ready to "sell out" and go
elsewhere, and good bargains may often
be had from them. There is, also, much
land which has been taken up by men
residing in towns, who never intended
to live upon and cultivate it Much of
this, also, is for sale at reasonable fig
ures. The immigrant who alights from
tho cars at Sprague, will find himself at
the nearest railroad point to a large area
of the finest arable prairie land in Wash
ington, where the opportunities to ac
quire land by homestead, preemption or
timber-culturo entry, or by purchase, are
good, and whero ho will meet courteous
treatment and kind attention from tho
citizens.
While I was in Sprague I was shown
a collection of tho products of Lincoln
county, which had been gathered for
exhibition at tho fair in St PauL There
was wheat which yielded forty-two bush
els to the acre, and oats which had given
sixty-nino ; corn of several varieties,
large ears and sound and perfect kcrnal,
ono stalk of dent corn being thirteen
feet and two inches in height; turnip
weighing sixteen and one-half pounds;
squah weighing seventy.fivo pounds;
cnbbage-heada weighing from twenty to
forty pounds; pumpkins of enormous
sires; melons-water, musk, cantaloupe,
cutmeg and hanana-of good size and
delicious llavor; cucumbers, both of the
ordinary and snako variety; tomatoes,
onions, beets, peas ami beans of the best
quality; Japanese radUhea, both black
and white, and potatoes of large size
and sound center, as white and mealy as
any that ever came from the ground,
which had produced from one hundred
to three hundred bushels to the acre.
There were specimens of cultivated
grasses, including great bunches of al
falfa grown on the top of the hills with
out irrigation, and timothy six and one
half feet high, with a head nine and
one-half inches long, also wild rye grass
eight feet high. In the line of fruit,
though early in the season, there were
splendid specimens of pears, apples
crab apples, prunes, plums and peaches.
Taken altogether it was a magnificent
exhibit, and when it is considered that
it was gathered from a newly settled
region, which was but a few years ago
considered only fit for a stock range, it
forms one of the best possible evidences
of the rapid and wonderful development
of Eastern Washington.
The Colville mines, which have come
so prominently into notice during the
last two years, lie due north of Sprague,
with which they are connected by a good
wagon road, by the way of Fort Spo
kane, near the mouth of Spokane river.
Both of these points aro nearer Sprague
than Spokane Falls, yet the mail routes
have been established from the latter
place. All the supplies for Fort Spo
kane are freighted from Sprague, and if
tho Western mail were sent by the same
route it would reach the fort a day earl
ier than by the present route. An effort
is being made to have the postal author
ities take proper action in this matter
and establish a route from Sprague,
The same is true of the now famous
mines of Salmon river, in the Okanagan
country, north of the Columbia. The
distance to theso mines from Sprague is
about thirty miles less than from Spo
kane Falls, and a mail route should bo
established from that city. Much team
ing to tho new mines is being done from
Sprague, which possesses the two ad-