I come now to a period of my life, as one might say, on the border land between pioneer days of the old Oregon country and of the later development of the younger territory and this giant State bearing the great name of the father of our country.

An account of these ventures follows in the order of their occurrence.

MY HOP VENTURE.

The public, generally, give me the credit of introducing hop culture into the Northwest.

As this business created such a stir in the world's market, and made the Puyallup Valley famous, and as my name has become so prominently connected with hop culture, I can hardly pass this episode of my life by without notice. As I say elsewhere, this should not properly be called a venture, although the violent fluctuations of prices made it hazardous. But I can truly say, that for twenty-two years' successive crops, I did not raise a single crop upon which I lost money, and that for that many years I added each year some acreage to my holdings. But few hop-growers, however, can say so much as to losses incurred.

A history of the establishment and destruction of the business follows:

About the fifteenth of March, 1865, Chas. Wood, of Olympia, sent about three pecks of hop roots to Steilacoom for my father, Jacob R. Meeker, who then lived on his claim nearby where Sumner was afterwards built in the Puyallup Valley. John V. Meeker, my brother, carried this sack of roots on his back from Steilacoom to my father's home, a distance of about twenty miles, passing by my cabin (the remains of which are still standing in Pioneer Park, Puyallup) with his precious burden. I fingered out of the sack roots sufficient to plant six hills of hops, and so far as I know those were the first hops planted in the Puyallup Valley. My father planted the remainder in four rows of about six rods in length, and in the following September harvested the equivalent of one bale of hops, 180 pounds, and sold them to Mr. Wood for 85 cents per pound, receiving a little over $150.00.

This was the beginning of the hop business in the Puyallup Valley, and the Territory of Washington.

This was more money than had been received by any settler in the Puyallup Valley, excepting perhaps two, from the products of their farm for that year. My father's nearby neighbors, Messrs. E. C. Mead and L. F. Thompson, obtained a barrel of hop roots from California the next year, and planted them the following spring—four acres. I obtained what roots I could get that year, but not enough to plant an acre. The following year (1867) I planted four acres, and for twenty-six successive years thereafter added to this plantation until our holdings reached past the five-hundred-acre mark, and our production over four hundred tons a year.

After having produced his third crop my father died (1869), but not until after he had shipped his hops to Portland, Oregon. In settling up his affairs I found it necessary for me to go to Portland, and there met Henry Winehard, who had purchased some of the hops. Mr. Winehard, was the largest brewer in Oregon. After closing up the business with Mr. Winehard, he abruptly said, "I want your hops next year." I answered that I did not know what the price would be. He said, "I will pay you as much as anybody else," and then frankly told me of their value. He said they were the finest hops he had ever used, and that with them he had no need to use either foreign or New York hops, but with the hops raised in the hotter climate of California, he could not use them alone. I told him he should have them, and the result was that for fourteen years, with the exception of one year, Mr. Winehard used the hops grown on my place, some years 200 bales, some years more. My meeting with him gave me such confidence in the business that I did not hesitate to add to my yards as rapidly as I could get the land cleared, for I had at first planted right among the stumps. There came a depression in this business in 1869 and 1870, and my neighbors, Messrs. Mead and Thompson, made the mistake of shipping their hops to Australia, and finally lost their entire crop—not selling for much, if anything, above the cost of the freight, while Mr. Winehard paid me 25 cents a pound for my crop. Under the discouragement of the loss of their crop, Messrs. Mead and Thompson concluded to plow up a part of their plantation—two acres and a half—whereupon I leased that portion of their yard for a year, paying them $10.00 an acre in advance, and harvested from those two acres and a half over four thousand pounds of hops, and sold them to Henry Winehard for 50 cents a pound. This was for the crop of 1871.

None of us knew anything about the hop business, and it was totally accidental that we engaged in it, but seeing that there were possibilities of great gain, I took extra pains to study up the question, and found that by allowing our hops to mature thoroughly and curing them at a low temperature, and baling them while hot, we could produce a hop that would compete with any product in the world. Others of my neighbors planted, and also many in Oregon, until there soon became a field for purchasing and shipping hops.

But the fluctuations were so great that in a few years many became discouraged and lost their holdings, until finally, during the world's hop crop failure of the year 1882, there came to be unheard-of prices for hops, and fully one-third of the crop of the Puyallup Valley was sold for $1.00 per pound. I had that year nearly 100,000 pounds, which averaged me 70 cents per pound.

About this time I had come to realize that the important market for hops was in England, and began sending trial shipments, first, seven bales, then the following year 500 bales, then 1,500 bales, until finally our annual shipments reached 11,000 bales a year, or the equivalent in value of £100,000—half million dollars—said to be at that time the largest export hop trade by any one concern in the United States.

This business could not properly be called a venture; it was simply a growth. The conditions were favorable in that we could produce the choicest hops in the world's market at the lowest price of any kind, and we actually did press the English growers so closely that over fifteen thousand acres of hops were destroyed in that country.

My first hop house was built in 1868—a log house—and stands in Pioneer Park, Puyallup, to this day, and is carefully preserved by the city authorities and doubtless will be until it perishes by the hand of time. We frequently employed from a thousand to twelve hundred people during the harvest time. Until the beginning of the decline of the business, the result of that little start of hop roots had brought over twenty million dollars into the Territory of Washington.

I spent four winters in London on the hop market, and became acquainted with all the leading hop men of the metropolis.

One evening as I stepped out of my office, and cast my eyes towards one group of our hop houses, I thought I could see that the hop foliage of a field nearby was off color—did not look natural. Calling one of my clerks from the office he said the same thing—they did not look natural. I walked down to the yards, a quarter of a mile distant, and there first saw the hop-louse. The yard was literally alive with lice, and were destroying—at least the quality. At that time I issued a hop circular, sending it to over 600 correspondents all along the coast in California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, and before the week was out. I began to receive samples and letters from them, and inquiries asking what was the matter with the hops.

It transpired that the attack of lice was simultaneous in Oregon, Washington and British Columbia, extending over a distance coastwise of more than 500 miles, and even inland up the Skagit River, where there was an isolated yard.

It came like a clap of thunder out of a clear sky, so unexpected was it.

I sent my second son, Fred Meeker, to London to study the question and to get their methods of fighting the pest, and to import some spraying machinery. We found, however, in the lapse of years, to our cost, that the conditions here were different, that while we could kill the louse, the foliage was so dense that we had to use so much spraying material that, in killing the louse, we virtually destroyed the hops, and instead of being able to sell our hops at the top price of the market, our product fell to the foot of the list, the last crop I raised costing me eleven cents per pound, and selling for three under the hammer at sheriff's sale.

At that time I had more than $100,000.00 advanced to my neighbors and others upon their hop crops, which was lost. These people simply could not pay, and I forgave the debt, taking no judgments against them, and have never regretted the action.

All of my accumulations were swept away, and I quit the business, or, rather, the business quit me.

The result was that finally, after a long struggle, nearly all of the hops were plowed up and the land used for dairy, fruit and general crops and is actually now of a higher value than when bearing hops.

A curious episode occurred during the height of our struggle to save the hop business from impending destruction. The Post-Intelligencer of Seattle published the following self-explanatory correspondence on the date shown and while the Methodist conferences were yet in session:

THE CURSE ON THE HOPS.

When this letter appeared, vigorous protests came thick and fast and compelled the good fathers to give Mr. Hanson another charge. But my vainglorious boasting was not justified as the sequel shows; our hops were finally destroyed—whether under a curse or not must be decided by the reader, each for himself or herself. But I never got my $400.00 back, and, in fact, did not want it, and doubtless wrote the letter in a pettish mood.