the farmers elect their own officers, who have complete charge. The Yakima Investment Company is the principal exception. It owns one of the largest canals in the United States, being thirty feet wide at the bottom, sixty-two feet at the top and over forty miles long. It covers some 50,000 acres in what is known as the Sunnyside, on the east side of the lower Yakima, and takes its water from that river. The annual charge for water is $1.50 per acre. There are no reservoirs in the county, and all are gravity ditches, except the one owned by the Prosser Falls Irrigation Company. This company utilises a small part of the power of the falls in the Yakima, about fifty miles from its mouth, to run two mammoth pumps to elevate sufficient water 100 feet to fill its canal and to irrigate 3,000 acres. The long, warm summers, with the richest of soils, constant sunshine and abundant water, cause all the products of the temperate zone to thrive luxuriantly. This valley will produce everything that is raised in Southern California, except the lemon and orange, and possibly the fig. The prune, plum, peach, persimmon, pear, apricot, cherry, apple, and quince are grown to a size and with a flavor and keeping quality that is not excelled, if equaled, in any other locality. All kinds of trees are now (July 1st) loaded with fruit, and the limited experience of the past would seem to indicate that the fruit crop can be relied upon. While the trees have to be sprayed to keep them clean of the green aphis, the fruit itself is not attacked by any pests. The past success in growing it gives assurance that a large part of the valley will eventually be devoted to fruit. The quality of the variegated product should make the orchards quite as valuable as the orange groves of Southern California. Small fruits are equally productive, and melons excel in quality and quantity. Every vegetable raised anywhere in the United States can be produced here successfully. The asparagus and celery are especially fine. Potatoes grow to such size and are of such superior quality, that they bid fair to make the Yakima Valley celebrated for this product alone. Wheat, rye, barley, corn, broom-corn and sorghum are |