There is a State which is one of the most northern in the United States and yet which has a climate as mild as that of Virginia minus Virginia's torrid summers.
Its soil produces the largest trees, the largest apples, the largest variety of fruits and gold second on quantity only to Colorado. In a part of the State the rain never falls in the summer, and yet when the farmer sows in the spring he is absolutely sure of harvesting in the fall.
The stock raiser feeds his herds in the mountains in the summer and on the alfalfa plains in the winter. He has no need to make hay while the sun shines because green feed is abundant the year round.
This ideal state is Washington, the most progressive and wealthy in resources of the commonwealth of the Pacific Coast.
Washington has forged to the front of public attention rapidly during the last few years, but especially this last summer. The two great state journals of the state, the Tacoma Ledger and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, have exploited the State's vast resources and delightful climate throughout this broad land. In this line they were seconded by a line of advertising at the Pan-American Exposition that was in the nature of an ocular demonstration of the State's wealth. It is one thing to read about big trees and big apples, and still another to see them. Washington took good care to see that people who visited the Pan-American Exposition should see for themselves what the State could produce.
In the Northern Portico of the Agriculture building she set up an office. It was not a artistic creation of mirrors and polished brass and carved wood and upholstery like a bar room. It was just a plain tree trunk; it had a stool, and a slab divided it into two sections, the slab constituting a table as well as as partition. Here Commissioner Elmer E. Johnston and his associates did the business of advertising the State. Out of the straw the commissioners winnowed up 5000 persons who declared their intention of going to Seattle in Washington as soon as they could make arrangements. If there is another State that can make such a practical showing of the benefits derived from the Pan-American Exposition it remains to be seen.
Nor was this all. The State made a marvelous exhibit of grains, grasses and products of the soil. The pavilion in the Agriculture building was a treatise upon the richest husbandry, and the spruce in the Horticulture looked as if the horn of plenty had been spilled there. Moreover, the commissioners themselves were the most enthusiastic spielers for the merits of their State. Only yesterday, Commissioner Johnston took occasion while packing up to say to a NEWS reporter:
"You think that we Washingtonians are over-sanguine as to the future of our State. I will prove to you that we are modest about it of the two extremes."
Commissioner Johnston spread out a map of the State and traced the railroad lines with his index finger.
"You see here one reason why the State will be one of the greatest in population in a few years," he remarked. "The expansion policy of the Government has made necessary increased transportation facilities on the Pacific coast. All the trade with the Philippines, with Hawaii, and with China and Japan must be handled from this vast inland harbor of the Puget Sounds. There is no other harbor from there to the Golden Gate capable of development.
"Such men as J. Pierpont Morgan and James Hill, who are able to look ahead from and financial attitude far above most men, have been watching this region for some time and have begun buying up real estate here"- indicating the region around Everett - "They expect to see built up here the third largest city of the United States."
The meteorological paradox whereby Washington with her northerly location has an equable climate is due to the Japanese current that bathes its coast and carries the influence of its warm water far inland. The climate is much more equable than that of other States situated in corresponding latitudes in the East. The daily and seasonal range which has such a direct bearing on climate, is not great. The mean temperature of the month of January is 34.2 degrees averaged for 12 years over the entire State. The July average for the same period is 64.4 degrees. The difference between these two is 30.4 degrees, the seasonal range.
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