Industry in the Pacific Northwest and the Location Theory 9780231884426

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INDUSTRY IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST AND T H E LOCATION

THEORY

INDUSTRY IN T H E PACIFIC NORTHWEST AND

THE

LOCATION THEORY

Edwin

King's

J. Cohn,

Crown

Jr

Press

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK 1954

COPYRIGHT FIRST

1952

BY E D W I N

PUBLISHED

KINC'S

IN

BOOK

CROWN

J.

COHN,

FORM

JH.

1954

PRESS

is an imprint established by Columbia University Press for the purpose of making certain scholarly material available at minimum cost. Toward that end, the publishers have used standardized formats incorporating every reasonable economy that does not interfere with legibility. T h e author has assumed complete responsibility for editorial style and for proofreading.

Library

of Congress

Catalog

Card

Number:

54-6134

P U B L I S H E D IN CHEAT BRITAIN, CANADA, INDIA, AND BY

CEOFFREY

CUMBERLECE,

LONDON, TORONTO,

OXFORD

BOMBAY,

UNIVERSITY

PAKISTAN PRESS

AND KARACHI

M A N U F A C T U R E D IN T H E UNITED STATES O F

AMERICA

PREFACE of this study is to examine in terms of locational theory the industrial development of an immature, but growing, economy in an attempt to ascertain why a particular form of development is taking place, thereby to provide some evaluation of the usefulness of locational theory. A special consideration largely responsible for the selection of the Pacific Northwest as the region to be studied was the desire to examine the efficacy of abundant cheap hydroelectric power in attracting industry and aiding the development and diversification of the industries of an area. (Except for a short period after the war—1945-47—the Northwest has not had any substantial surplus of power. This, however, should not invalidate the study: more abundant power would have attracted more representatives of the same industries that have settled in the Northwest, but it would have effected no change in the range of industrial activity in the region.) A secondary purpose was to observe the effect of widely available electric power on the dispersion of industry within an area. The Pacific Northwest is considered to be, roughly, the drainage basin of the Columbia River. Since the greater part of the industrial development is in Washington and Oregon, however, these states will receive more attention than essentially unindustrialized Idaho and western Montana. T H E PURPOSE

The usual competitive considerations of markets, comparative costs, and convenience to raw materials and labor appear to have played a minor role in determining the location of the Atomic Energy Commission plant at Hanford, Washington; more important considerations were, apparently, the avail-

vi

Preface

ability of power, water, and land, plus security. Furthermore, it is in no sense a part of the general industrial development of the Northwest. Therefore it was decided to omit consideration of this installation. Since this study was completed there has been further growth in the Northwest. Unfortunately it has not been possible to include all of the most recent developments. These have, however, conformed to the pattern outlined in here. This study was pursued by an examination of the general literature and statistics on the Northwest, followed by four months in this region during the summer and autumn of 1950. This period was devoted largely to interviews with officials of Federal and local government, public utilities, trade associations, and chambers of commerce; manufacturers and interested citizens; and representatives of university, newspaper, and labor groups. A list of those consulted appears in the appendix. To the many people on whose knowledge and experience this study draws so heavily and without whose generous assistance this project would have been impossible, I wish to express my gratitude. I would particularly like to thank the following: Professor Carter Goodrich, of Columbia, under whose guidance this study was made; Ivan Bloch, Bernard Goldhammer, Μ. Reid Hangar, and Van Seagraves, of Portland, Ore., all of whom gave substantial assistance in the collection of materials and also read the manuscript; Herbert W. Wind for his editorial aid; and my wife Katherine.

CONTENTS I . T H E T H E O R Y O F T H E L O C A T I O N OF INDUSTRY II.

THE

III.

THE

IV. V.

3

LAND

12

POPULATION

21

T H E G E N E R A L C H A R A C T E R O F N O R T H W E S T INDUSTRY THE

NATURE

AND

DISTRIBUTION

OF

INDUSTRY

42

VI.

THE

BASIC

VII.

THE

FOREST-PRODUCTS

SECONDARY

AND

INDUSTRIES

SATELLITE

51

FOREST-PRODUCTS

INDUSTRIES VIII.

75

T H E FOOD-PROCESSING

IX.

29

NORTHWEST

INDUSTRIES

89

HYDROELECTRIC P O W E R AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT

105

T H E ELECTRO-PROCESS INDUSTRIES

121

XI.

THE

CONSUMER-ORIENTED

148

XII.

THE

FOOTLOOSE

X.

INDUSTRIES

INDUSTRIES

160

XIII.

DETERRENTS TO INDUSTRIAL D E V E L O P M E N T

171

XIV.

L O C A T I O N A L T H E O R Y AND T H E N O R T H W E S T

177

NOTES LIST

OF

183 PEOPLE

INTERVIEWED

190

INDEX

199 TABLES

1. INDEX O F C O N C E N T R A T I O N O F N O R T H W E S T INDUSTRY

32

2. G R O W T H OF NORTHWEST

34

INDUSTRY, 1 9 3 9 - 4 7

3 . P E R C A P I T A I N C O M E P A Y M E N T S FOR T H E

NORTHWEST,

1929-50,

E X P R E S S E D AS A P E R C E N T A G E O F P E R

INCOME

IN T H E

UNITED

STATES

CAPITA 37

viii

Tables

4 . DISTRIBUTION

OF E M P L O Y M E N T

BETWEEN

DIFFERENT

C L A S S E S OF INDUSTRY 5 . CONCENTRATION

OF

39 INDUSTRY

IN

METROPOLITAN

S E A T T L E AND PORTLAND, 1 9 4 7

46

6 . PERCENTAGE INCREASE OF POPULATION AND INDUSTRIAL EMPLOYMENT 7. LUMBER

56

PRODUCTION

WASHINGTON, 8. MAN-YEAR

IN

WESTERN

OREGON

AND

1925-48

57

REQUIREMENTS

IN

FOREST

PRODUCTS

IN-

DUSTRIES 9. 10.

76

INDEX O F CONCENTRATION O F THE L U M B E R INDEX

OF

FIXTURE 11.

INDEX

CONCENTRATION

OF

THE

INDUSTRY

FURNITURE

AND

INDUSTRY

80

OF CONCENTRATION

OF THE

PULP

AND

PAPER

INDUSTRY 12.

82

INDEX OF CONCENTRATION O F FOOD PROCESSING

13. POWER

CONSUMPTION,

1939-47,

MILLIONS

100

OF

KILO-

WATT HOURS 14. POWER

CONSUMPTION

KILOWATT

79

116 PER

PRODUCTION

WORKER

IN

HOURS

116

1 5 . C O S T OF P O W E R PER D O L L A R V A L U E OF PRODUCT

117

1 6 . I N D E X O F CONCENTRATION O F C L O T H I N G INDUSTRY

154

1 7 . I N D E X OF CONCENTRATION OF T H E CONSUMER-ORIENTED INDUSTRIES

157

MAPS M a p 1 TOPOCRAPHIC R E L I E F OF T H E P A C I F I C

NORTH-

Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission, National Resources Planning Board, Region 9. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Aeronautical Charts, Issue of 1938: Lambert Projection, North American WEST.

Maps

ίχ Datum. Reproduced from Economic Atlas of the Pacific Northwest (Northwest Regional Council in Cooperation with the Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission, The Bonneville Power Administration Portland, 1942).

Maps 2 & 3

TEMPERATURES

IN

THE

PACIFIC

13

NORTHWEST.

T O P : JANUARY* M E A N T E M P E R A T U R E .

BOTTOM:

Reproduced from The Pacific Northwest: A Regional, Human, and Economic Survey of Resources and Development, by Otis W. Freeman, Howard H. Martin, and others (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1942), pp. 109, 112.

JULY MEAN TEMPERATURE.

Maps 4

& 5 CLIMATE LENGTH

IN OF

THE

PACIFIC

FROST-FREE

NORTHWEST. SEASON.

15

TOP:

BOTTOM:

ANNUAL PRECIPITATION. Reproduced from The Pacific Northwest: A Regional, Human, and Economic Survey of Resources and Development, by Otis W. Freeman, Howard H. Martin, and others (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1 9 4 2 ) , pp. 1 1 7 - 1 8 .

MEAN

Map 6

17

M A J O R TRANSPORTATION L I N E S IN T H E P A C I F I C

Reproduced from The Pacific Northwest: A Regional, Human, and Economic Survey of Resources and Development, by Otis W. Freeman, Howard H. Martin, and others (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1942), p. 431. NORTHWEST.

M a p 7 DISTRIBUTION

OF

POPULATION,

CENSUS

OF

1940. (Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission, National Resources Planning

24

χ

Maps Board, Region 9). Reproduced from The Pacific Northwest: A Regional, Human, and Economic Survey of Resources and Development, by Otis W. Freeman, Howard H. Martin, and others (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1942), p. 521. M a p 8 GENERALIZED

FOREST

TYPE

MAP

OF

25

THE

Developed by the Pacific Northwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, U.S. Forest Service, Portland, Oregon. Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission, National Resources Planning Board, Region 9. March, 1941. Portland, Oregon. Reproduced from Economic Atlas of the Pacific Northwest (Northwest Regional Council in Cooperation with the Pacific Northwest Regional Planning Commission, The Bonneville Power Administration, Portland, 1942). PACIFIC NORTHWEST.

Map 9

PACIFIC N O R T H W E S T T Y P E S OF F A R M I N G .

60

Pa-

cific Northwest Planning Commission, National Resources Planning Board, Region 9. Reproduced from The Pacific Northwest: A Regional Human, and Economic Survey of Resources and Development, by Otis W. Freeman, Howard H. Martin, and others (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1942), p. 328.

92

M a p 1 0 F E D E R A L HYDROELECTRIC PROJECTS IN T H E P A -

Based on a Map in Bonneville Power Administration, 1950 Advance Programs. 108 CIFIC N O R T H W E S T .

INDUSTRY

IN T H E

NORTHWEST LOCATION

PACIFIC

AND

THE

THEORY

CHAPTER

I

THE THEORY OF THE LOCATION OF INDUSTRY INDUSTRIES tend to develop near the market for their output. For any factor of production to attract a manufacturing operation at a distance from its market, the economies which result must exceed the savings in transportation costs which would follow from a location at the market. Resources, especially raw materials, and labor are the chief factors of production able to outweigh this powerful pull of markets. The resource-oriented industries are far less numerous, however, than they are commonly thought to be. Of the industries covered by the Census of Manufactures, only about one-fifth are direct processors of raw materials. 1 The locational pull of raw materials is essentially limited to those industries which are direct processors of raw materials and is in proportion to the weight loss in processing. Manufacturing accompanied by little or no weight loss—this usually includes all but the initial processing—is drawn to a market, to a labor force, or to some other factor of production, but not to a raw material. Fuel is another resource which has exerted a profound influence upon the location of manufacturing. Industry originally developed near forests, where wood and charcoal were available to fire ovens and furnaces, and on swift streams, where falling water could be made to turn machinery. The subsequent adoption of coal as the basic industrial fuel caused factories to develop in coal mining districts—the Midlands,

MANUFACTURING

4

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

the Ruhr, and the Ohio Valley—or at least at points to which coal could be brought cheaply by rail or water. The introduction of electricity altered the position of coal deposits in determining the locational pattern of industry. Once it became possible to transmit the energy from burning fuel or falling water over long distances and then reconvert it to thermal or mechanical energy at the point of consumption, it was no longer necessary to locate factories near collieries or waterfalls. With the development of the modern power networks, which make electricity almost universally available, at least in the more advanced nations, the coal districts have ceased to attract industry except when coal is used, not as a source of power, but as a raw material, as in making steel, or when the industrial development originally inspired by coal has created other conditions favorable to industrial growth, such as markets or skilled labor. Electricity has released industry from dependence on coal deposits; in addition, electricity has the power to attract a limited range of industry. If required in unusual quantities, as for the smelting of aluminum, electricity can attract industry in much the same way as raw materials do, although it does not enter physically into the final product. Water, a resource vital to a considerable range of industry, restricts the location of many factories to sites near rivers and lakes. Labor, like resources, can encourage manufacturing to develop at a distance from the market. For this to occur, however, two conditions are necessary: first, the proportion of labor costs in the total cost of production must be sufficiently high for the savings which ensue to cutweigh the economics which would be realized were the industry to locate at a market or at a resource; secondly, the labor itself must be bound to a given locality. Industries are attracted to two very different types of labor supply: the high-cost highly qualified labor which makes Akron and Detroit attractive as produc-

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

5

tivity-maximum centers; and the low-cost semi-skilled labor which has drawn the textile industry to wage-minimum areas in the South. In both cases, however, the output of labor is high in relation to its cost per unit of product. The principal factors which determine either a productivity-maximum or a wage-minimum area are the local wage rate, social security and other incidental labor costs, and the productivity, tractability, size, and continuity of the labor supply. In addition to labor and resources, the principal factors of production affecting the location of industry are financial, engineering, and other technical services, plus entrepreneurship. Derived locational factors rather than a priori like raw materials, they are generally found most fully developed in districts which are already well advanced industrially. Their influence is less basic than that of markets, labor supply, or raw materials. It is frequently only in a negative sense that they are felt at all: their absence from a region may prevent or retard the development of industry there. Capital is now generally considered to be more mobile and less localized than it once was, at least within a given nation, as more effective ways have been derived to invest the surplus funds of one section in enterprises situated elsewhere in the same country. Therefore capital has less effect on the location of industry today than it had when this problem was first explored. Some relationship still exists, however, between the availability of risk capital and the location of new enterprises. Apart from both markets and factors of production are certain forces, predominantly noneconomic, which exert a modifying influence on the regional distribution of industry. These are geographic, climatic, political, and historical, plus a few which cannot even be termed rational and must be regarded as accidental or personal. Transportation routes played an important role in deteririning the locus of commercial activity long before the In-

6

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

dustrial Revolution. Towns on arterial waterways and at the entrance to mountain passes enjoyed strategic advantages. Industry has tended to settle in such centers in the wake of commerce. The relatively cheap transportation available by water and water-level routes helps to account for the location of so large a proportion of United States manufacturing in cities on the Eastern Seaboard, or on rivers leading thereto, on the Great Lakes, on the Mississippi and its tributaries, and on the West and Gulf Coasts. Mountains, on the other hand, act as barriers to the movement of goods; but because mountain passes funnel traffic, the towns which command them have frequently become important commercially and sometimes industrially. The effect of climatic conditions on the location of industry is less profound than it was once thought to be. The humidity requirements of the cotton textile industry, for instance, can now be met by air-conditioning; it is no longer necessary to locate mills where the atmosphere has the proper amount of moisture. It was formerly argued that the temperate zone was the natural seat of mechanical industry and that the tropics were not suited to manufacturing. 3 Industrialization is proceeding steadily today in some tropical countries and it is becoming apparent that not the tropical climate itself but the social and economic institutions and attitudes prevalent in tropical lands have been the retarding force. An important effect of climate on the location of industry is its influence on population distribution. Cold, and therefore sparsely settled regions have little industry. Conversely, a pleasant climate, by attracting large numbers of settlers and thus providing both a market and a labor force, can make a substantial indirect contribution to the growth of industry, as it has in Southern California. Moreover, because of the preference of their promoters for living in that region not a few factories have been built there despite economic disadvantages.

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

7

The political institutions of a country also play a role in attracting or repelling industry. Industrialization tends to lag in countries with a history of political turmoil and to thrive where there is political stability. Privileged treatment of industry, notably tax concessions, has been found to attract industry in some instances, although the advantages may prove illusory. Factories which once had a sound economic reason for selecting a given location may remain there when that reason is no longer valid. Industries which originally developed to exploit a local raw material, for instance, have frequently continued there after the resource itself has been exhausted. A skilled labor supply, satellite industries, and other advantageous features not indigenous to the region constitute derived locational factors of importance. Other industries have developed, however, not because of an economic factor which was once powerful, but because of historical accident. Here too derived advantages come to exert a locational influence. Transportation, although it does not attract manufacturing in the manner of markets or factors of production, does connect the disparate factors with each other and with markets; therefore it plays a significant role in determining the location of industry. The pull of locational forces is affected by the efficiency and cost of moving goods. Generally speaking, as tie means of transportation have improved and the costs hereof have been reduced there has been a tendancy to sibstitute transportation for the other factors. Where transportation services are crude or expensive, manufacturing is iitensely localized; freight rates which are high in relation to tie value of the product act as a protective tariff. Prior to the last quarter of the nineteenth century little efort was made to analyze the forces which affect the location o" manufacturing. The few theoretical treatises which dis-

8

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

cussed the location of industry at all attempted to deal simultaneously with agriculture, trade, and industry. Adam Smith (1723-90), like most early writers on economic matters, mentioned the location of industry only in connection with agriculture, for at that time there was little manufacturing beside the processing of agricultural raw materials. He observed that manufacturing flourishes in regions which enioy a food surplus, but lack cheap transportation. The unexportable food surplus attracts and supports a labor force engaged in converting the produce of the land into manufactured articles. (Food is essentially a resource which is 100 percent weight-losing.) These, having a greater value per unit weight than either the raw materials from which they were made or the food which sustained the workmen, can readily be shipped to distant markets. 3 J. H. von Thünen (1783-1850), likewise thinking of industry in relation to agriculture, visualized a hypothetical city surrounded by concentric circles of farms. The latter supply the city with the products of their land, flocks, and forests in exchange for its manufactured goods. The concentric rings nearer the city are occupied by crops which, because of perishability or bulkiness, cannot be transported long distances. In this conception, transportation costs are virtually the sole determinant of the location of economic activity.4 Alfred Marshall (1842-1924), like Adam Smith, recognized that the production of goods of great value in relation to weight could be highly localized and that such articles could be shipped long distances. He also pointed out that industries were established close to localized raw materials, to markets of a specialized nature, and to settlements of imported artisans. Once established, however, an industry tends to remain in its location because traditional skills, subsidiary trades, and specialized equipment are developed.5

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

9

Late in the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth the location of industry attracted the attention of a number of economists, among them Wilhelm Roscher, Ε. A. Ross, Achille Loria, F. S. Hall, R. Maunier, H. Ritsehl, A. Predöhl, O. Engländer, and Alfred Weber. For the most part, these writers confined themselves to cataloguing the factors affecting the location of industry. Markets, raw materials, labor, and capital were usually listed, and in some cases climate, waterpower, fuels, or transportation were added. Loria (18571943) recognized that raw materials could remove production from the point of consumption if they lost much weight in fabrication.® Alfred Weber (1868), however, was the first to attempt a comprehensive and exhaustive theoretical analysis of the location of industry.7 He visualized manufacturing as taking place at the point of consumption unless lured away for special reasons. The primary forces able to upset this market orientation are localized raw materials. In Weber's conceptual scheme raw-material deposits pull with the weight of the raw material, and points of consumption with the weight of the finished article, both weights being adjusted to include transportation costs. Only a localized material which outweighs the finished product, i. e., loses much weight in processing, can attract industry. Ubiquitous elements—water, air, or sand, for instance—strengthen the pull of the consumption center. Industry can be drawn away from this point of minimal transport costs to a point of lower costs if the savings in the cost of labor exceed the additional transportation costs. Industry can also be attracted to points with special advantages resulting from concentration of manufacturing activity, or agglomeration, as Weber called it. The heterogeneous agglomerative factors include transportation and technical and marketing services; auxilliary industries; a labor force of unusual size or experience; cross-fertilization of ideas for production;

10

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

and counterbalancing seasonal fluctuations in the demand for labor by different industries. Weber ambitiously attempted to reduce these concepts to mathematical terms expressed numerically in coefficients and indices and graphically in diagrams. Although the concepts are too complicated and unrealistic to be susceptible to any precise mathematical formulation, Weber's conceptual scheme remains the most effective attempt to construct a comprehensive system explaining the geographical distribution of industry. Subsequent theoretical work on the location of industries has been largely re-examination and criticism of Weber's ideas. A number of empirical studies, however, among them Edgar M. Hoover's investigation of the shoe and leather industry 8 and the report of the National Planning Association Committee of the South, "Why Industry Moves South,"9 have added to the understanding of the forces determining the location of industry. The effect of universally available electricity on the location of industry has attracted the attention, particularly in the 1920s, of a number of economists and regional planners. It was thought (and by some hoped) that the technical advances which extended the effective transmission radius of electricity to two or three hundred miles and made power available throughout a region or an entire nation would release industry from its dependence on coal mines and cities to which coal could be brought cheaply. Dispersion of industry from the larger manufacturing centers to towns and rural areas was predicted. The truck and automobile, more flexible than railroads or waterways, were to assist in this process. With the removal of these two barriers to industrial decentralizationtransportation and power—the progressive urbanization of industry which had been taking place since the Industrial Revolution was to be reversed, or at least retarded, by the movement of factories to the countryside. This view is pre-

THEORY OF LOCATION OF INDUSTRY

11

sen ted by the Belgian economist Laurent Dechesne, 10 Irving Fisher and fellow participants in the American Academy's "Giant Power" symposium,11 Henry Ford, and others; but it is most fully developed by the New York State Commission of Housing and Regional Planning report of 1926 12 and by Lewis Mumford. 13 Electricity was made widely available at an early stage in the industrial development of the Pacific Northwest; there was no previous commitment to a locational pattern based on coal. The Northwest, therefore, offers a test of this hypothesis of intra-regional industrial decentralization, as well as providing an opportunity for a more general examination of the factors affecting the inter-regional distribution of industrial activity.

CHAPTER

II

THE LAND PHYSICAL R E L I E F AND C L I M A T E have exerted a profound influence on patterns of settlement and economic activity in the Pacific Northwest. The two most significant physical features of the region are the Cascade Mountains and the Columbia River. The Cascade Range, the northern extension of the Sierra Nevada, parallels the Pacific Coast about one hundred miles inland, dividing the area into two regions of contrasting climatic features and economic development: a western zone, humid and temperate, once densely forested, and relatively heavily populated; an eastern zone, semi-arid, continental in climate, unforested except in the mountains, and thinly populated.

While the Cascade Range has a divisive effect, the Columbia River tends to unify the area. It drains the entire Northwest except Puget Sound and a narrow coastal fringe in Washington and Oregon, and provides the only water-level route to the interior, the "Inland Empire." Ever since Lewis and Clark descended the Columbia, in 1805, this great river has been the principal avenue of communication between the coast and the interior. The fur trappers followed the Columbia; the early settlers of the Williamette Valley moved along its south bank as they followed the Oregon Trail in the 1840s; stem-wheelers steamed upstream carrying prospectors and their supplies to the mines of Idaho; transcontinental railroads were constructed on both its banks. Today bulk cargoes of oil move upstrAm and wheat downstream, while main highways parallel its shores.

14

THE LAND

Because the Columbia Gorge is the only break in the Cascades between California and the Canadian border, Portland, situated one hundred miles inland (that is, hundred miles upstream from the mouth of the Columbia, although only sixty miles overland from the coast at Tillamook) at the confluence of the Columbia and the Willamette rivers, has become a great city. Portland's command of the only water-level route to the interior has given it a strategic position similar to that held in the East by New York City. In addition to furnishing .transportation, the Columbia River has endowed the Northwest with another invaluable gift: water power. Within the Columbia Basin lies approximately 35 percent of the hydroelectric potential of the entire country—an estimated 33 million kilowatts.1 Today less than 15 percent (approximately 4.3 million kilowatts of installed capacity) has been developed, but new dams are rising on the Columbia and its tributaries to utilize this vast energy. Extending north and south of the Columbia River lies the Coastal Range, lower than the Cascades and separated from the Pacific only by a narrow coastal fringe. Between the Coastal Range and the Cascades runs the Puget Sound-Willamette Valley trough. These flat lowlands contain the largest population concentration in the Northwest, the two most important cities (Seattle and Portland), the capitals of both states, an intensive agriculture, and the greatest development of the manufacturing and service industries. In fact, the region west of the Cascades, although comprising but a third of the combined area of Washington and Oregon, has better than three-quarters of the population, and the bulk of this population is in the valley of the Willamette River and on the shores of Puget Sound. A major factor responsible for this concentration of population and economic activity in the western zone has been climate.- Its effect has been both direct and indirect. The milder

TEMPERATUHES IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. TOP: JANUARY MEAN TEMPERATURE. BOTTOM: JULY MEAN TEMPERATURE.

16

THE LAND

climate in the West has of itself attracted settlers. But more important has been the effect of the long growing season and abundant rainfall on vegetation. Good crops and thick stands of timber have made it possible for the "West Side," or western zone, to support extensive farming, fishing, and lumbering. Around these original extractive activities the economic development of the Northwest began and largely continues. From this base economic diversification has proceeded. The West Side, in short, has more people, not only because it is pleasanter to live there but also because the climate, through its favorable effect on forests and crops, enables this zone to support a higher level of economic activity and hence a denser population. The climate of this dominant coastal third of the Pacific Northwest is much like that of northwestern Europe or New Zealand. It is characterized by warm, dry summers and cool, moist winters. Seasonal and diurnal fluctuations in temperature are relatively small. Rainfall is concentrated in the winter months, although the summers are not altogether dry. This difference between the seasons is, on the one hand, a consequence of the ocean currents and winds and, on the other, of land temperatures. The climate is conditioned by mild öcean currents and prevailing westerly breezes. The temperature of the ocean varies less from summer to winter than that of the land. Air which has passed over the ocean is therefore cooler in summer and warmer in winter than the land onto which it moves. These currents of air from the Qcean exercise a moderating influence on land temperature. The western zone lacks those extreme fluctuations between summer and winter which would exist were the climate not marine-conditioned and which· do, in fact, characterize the area east of the Cascades at similar latitudes. Snow and ice are rare in Seattle, a phenomenon which is not encountered at 48° Ν latitude except in marine climates.

CLIMATE IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST. TOP: LENGTH OF FROSTFREE SEASON. BOTTOM: MEAN ANNUAL PRECIPITATION.

18

THE LAND

The long growing season resulting from this mildness of the winters has accelerated forest growth and has encouraged types of agriculture which can take advantage of long frostfree periods. On the west slopes of the Coastal range the frostfree period is uniformly more than 210 days, and in some places more than 270 days. There and along the shores of Puget Sound—where the growing season is almost as long and the rainfall almost as abundant—were found the densest and most valuable stands of Douglas fir timber. The cloudiness of the coast and the consequent absence of summer sun have inhibited crop growth and led to extensive dairying. The Willamette Valley, with a growing season of 210 days, abundant summer sunshine, and good land, was the scene of the first agricultural development of the Northwest. The Willamette continues to be a farming area of primary importance, specializing in nuts, berries, fruits, vegetables, seeds, and dairy products. Southwestern Washington is similar to the Willamette Valley. The Puget Sound area, deeply glaciated, possesses poorer soils. Farming here takes place largely on a narrow alluvial coastal strip and in shoe-string valleys which run deep into the Cascade Mountains. Absence of summer rainfall has constituted a problem, especially in the Willamette Valley. In winter the westerly breezes come in from the Pacific laden with moisture. Encountering the colder land, they are cooled, their capacity to carry moisture is reduced, clouds form, and precipitation, although seldom heavy, is virtually continuous from October through March. As the air ascends higher in the Coastal Range or later in the Cascade Mountains, its carrying capacity is still further reduced and precipitation is still heavier. On the west slope of the Coastal Range the rainfall is universally more than 60 inches, and in many areas it exceeds 100 inches. In the Olympic Mountains, the northern extension of the Coastal Range, it exceeds 140 inches. Three quarters of this precipita-

ΤΓΗΕ LAND

19

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