west side of the Cowlitz River at the portage (just north of present Toledo).[1] The PSA Company, organized in the late 1830s as the agricultural branch of the Hudson's Bay Company, set up its principal tillage site there in 1839–40. The original plan called for eight men, a number James Douglas felt was quite inadequate, but by spring 1839, twenty-four regular employees were scheduled.[2] At harvest time in 1840, forty cradlers were employed to cut crops, and a large number of Indians helped in the fields.[3] During the 1840s, about 1,500 acres were cultivated, and in 1844, for example, the Cowlitz Farm produced 7,000 bushels of wheat, 3,200 of oats, 1,000 of peas and some barley and potatoes.[4] Though the PSA Company's larger flocks of sheep and herds of cattle were located at its Nisqually establishment, when Roberts replaced Charles Forrest at Cowlitz in late 1846, the farm inventory included 1,000 head of cattle, 200 horses, 2,000 sheep and 400 hogs.[5]
Roberts was agent in charge of this large-scale agricultural establishment from the end of 1846 until October, 1851. His Cowlitz Farm journal, a semi-official record, described farm operations from August 23, 1847, through the end of May,
- ↑ In Townships 11 and 12 North, Range 1 and 2 West. Boundaries of the 3,500-acre farm are described in v. 2, P.S.A. Co. Ev., 23, 35. The Hudson's Bay Company used Cowlitz Prairie as a horse pasture as early as 1833 (Clarence B. Bagley, ed., "Journal of Occurrences at Nisqually House," Washington Historical Quarterly, VI [July, 1915], 195n), though not as a farm. See A. C. Anderson, "The Origin of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company," Mss. 728 (typed), OHS.
- ↑ A principal farmer, one principal shepherd and two assistants, six ploughmen, a blacksmith and his assistant, two rough carpenters and ten Canadian laborers. See Leonard A. Wrinch, "The Formation of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company," WHQ, XXIV (January, 1933), 6; and Douglas to Governor and Committee, October 18, 1838, in HBRS IV:264. Douglas felt that because the farm was so far from "civilized countries," it would require men to provide and repair carts, harness, lumber, houses, take care of farm machinery, as well as regular and seasonal agricultural laborers—in other words, conditions required a broad, integrated approach rather than simple agricultural production.
- ↑ "A. C . Anderson's Memo relating to the Cowlitz Farm, &c, 1841," Mss. 728 (typed), OHS.
- ↑ WHQ, XVIII (January, 1927), 59.
- ↑ Roberts' testimony in v. 2, P.S.A. Co. Ev., 68; see also ibid., 16.
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