All the cereals are successfully raised; dairying is one of the
most important industries; fruit-growing, particularly in small
fruits, such as strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, cherries,
etc., is very profitable and is engaging a great deal of attention.
Fish are caught in quantities and shipped to eastern markets, but
Pierce county's greatest natural wealth is in its vast forests.
An idea of the value can be had when it is said that $6,000,000
worth of lumber was cut in 1908 in Tacoma alone. In addition to
these great natural resources, Pierce county's commercial industries
are so great as to place it in the front rank of counties of the
Northwest. The great sawmills, woodworking plants and factories of
various kinds in the city of Tacoma alone employ 11,800 people, and
the value of their output last year amounted to over $43,000,000.00.

TRANSPORTATION.

Pierce county is fast becoming a network of transcontinental railroads
centering in Tacoma, which, coupled with the steamboat traffic on
the Sound, gives the county splendid traffic facilities. Pierce county
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for years was a non-competitive railroad point, the Northern Pacific
being the only road to enter its vast fields of wealth. Within the
last two years, however, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul, the
Union Pacific system, and the Great Northern, realizing the wealth
of the county and the importance of Tacoma as a manufacturing center,
the value of her perfect harbor for shipping, the vastness of her
great stretch of level tidelands for factory sites and terminal
yards, and the low cost at which freight can be transferred from the
rails to the sails or _vice versa_, have entered the field and are
now spending $11,000,000 on construction and terminal work in the