places, and Indian reception-room, weaving and spinning room, eating and sleeping rooms for the children, rooms for the family, and a school-house, all under one roof. There were, besides, a church, saw-mill, blacksmith-shop, granary, storehouse, and all necessary farm buildings. The mission farm, besides simply supporting the family, as was at first anticipated, became a source of supply to travellers the natives, and the other missions.[1]
The mission at Waiilatpu consisted of an adobe a story and a half high, sixty feet in length by eighteen in width, with library and bedroom at one end, dining and sitting room in the centre, and Indian room at the other end of the main building; the kitchen, school-room, and bedrooms being in a wing at right angles to it. A second house, called the mansion, stood at a little distance from the first, and was forty by thirty feet on the ground, and a story and a half high. Near these was a blacksmith-shop, and within four hundred feet of the dwelling was a small grist-mill. On one side of this group of buildings were the Walla
- ↑ Spalding had discovered as early as 1838 the fertility of the soil in the country east of the Cascades, and as early as 1845 that the plains were even more valuable for farming than the valleys. In a letter prepared by him in 1846 for the use and by the request of Joel Palmer, then on his way to the States, after giving the above opinion, he goes on to say: 'My place is one of the deepest valleys, and consequently the most exposed to reflection from the high bluffs around, which rise from 2,000 to 3,000 feet; but my farm, though prepared for irrigation, has remained without it for the last 4 years, I find the ground becomes more moist by cultivation. Three years ago I raised 600 bushels of shelled corn from 6 acres, and good crops of wheat on the same piece the 2 following years, without irrigation. Eight years ago I raised 1,500 bushels of potatoes from one acre and a half; measuring some of the bags in which they were brought to the cellars, and so judging of the whole amount. I gave every eleventh bag for digging and fetching, and kept a strict account of what every person brought, so that I was able to make a pretty accurate estimate of the whole amount. My potatoes and corn are always planted in drills. Every kind of grain or vegetable which I have tried in this upper country grows well. Wheat is sown in the fall, and harvested in June at this place; at Dr Whitman's in July, being in a more open country. Corn is planted in April and ripens in July; pease the same. Palmer's Journal, 167. In 1842, 140 Nez Percés cultivated the ground, in quantities of from ¼ of an acre to 5 acres each. One chief raised that year 100 bushels of corn, 176 bushels of pease, and between 300 and 400 bushels of potatoes. Another chief raised about the same amount; and about 40 Indian farmers raised from 20 to 100 bushels of grain of different kinds, besides potatoes, vegetables, and melons in abundance. Boston Miss. Herald, Oct. 1843, 383.
