but only the southern portion of it is immediately tributary to Tacoma.
The soil of the Puyallup Yalley is in general an alluvial deposit of great depth. About Puyallup it is sandy, and especially adapted to hops, which is the chief production of the fields in this vicinity. Nothing could be prettier than these hop-fields about harvest time, and few crops are so satisfactory as to income. There were raised this year between Tacoma and Seattle, including one hop-farm at Snoqualmie, forty thousand bales of two hundred pounds each, or eight million pounds. As the price was very good this year, the money realized, above the cost of raiding the crop, was one million six hundred and eighty thousand dollars. About ten thousand bales were raised in other parts of the State, which brings the year's returns on this one product of the valleys about the Sound up to two million dollars. I might say here, also, that the hop-crop of Oregon this year netted about one million dollars. And yet the extent of territory covered by hop-farms is comparatively small. The acre value of hops in a good year is about three hundred and fifty dollars; this year it was more, on account of a poor crop abroad. The Northern Pacific carried its first solid hop-train from the Puyallup in September, 1890. It consisted of twentyfive cars carrying fifteen thousand pounds each, or one hundred and eighty-seven tons. They were shipped to Baltimore to go to London. I hear it said that hop-vines are to be used in making paper and twine. If this is so, there need be no waste on the off years.
It is a great feature in favor of Puyallup that its transportation facilities are so good with the Northern Pacific, a transcontinental road, at its doors, a road to Seattle and Tacoma, and its special local road to the latter, making it a suburb of that city. The Yalley is prolific of vegetables and small fruits, as it must be of orchard fruits when they come into bearing more generally. Apples, pears, peaches, prunes, and apricots are said to yield large crops. Thus, with so favorable a soil and climate, and a market within seven miles by rail, the farmers of this favored region should become rich.
Continuing up the Yalley, Alderton is the next station we come to, a small place, but with the same general and natural
