and we are again in a bunch-grass country. But in crossing the Rockies the plains have partaken of their character, or rather of the disturbance that produced them. A large area of eastern Washington has been several times overflowed by lava, and it crops out in a disorder that is sometimes abundant in the Big Bend country and in the sage-brush lands. The powder or decay of this lava makes rich land, and where it is driest and most forbidding, the addition of water will turn it into a blooming garden. The Columbia River flows through this country in a deep gorge far below the level of the adjacent land; and there are other great gorges, like cracks in the earth, where you may see marked in the side walls eight or ten distinct strata or flows of lava. At the bottom of these "coulees" there is generally good land underlaid by lava. It is used for range land for cattle. For the rest, a great part of eastern Washington is in hills and mountains with valleys between them, with grassy or wooded slopes, profitable always to the fruit-grower, the farmer, or the cattle-man. Gold, silver, copper, lead, and small coal basins are found all over the northern tier of counties. This is part of that extraordinary treasure belt that reaches from the Cascade Mountains across Washington, across the Rockies and Idaho, and far into Montana. It is a vast tract of once-convulsed nature, a sweeping ocean of timbered billows of rock and soil. Where man has scratched the western end of it, and he has nowhere done more than that, is in the Kootenay country, but every where its productiveness is thought to be fabulous. Its western end, at the Cascades, is a marvellous scenic region. For grand desolation, ruggedness, vastness, and primitive wildness, it is unparalleled in our country. Below the ever snow-clad peaks that raise their white heads above the black solitudes of the forests are unnumbered glaciers, some of them even ten or twelve miles long, and many of them a quarter that length. The forests on the west slope of the Cascades are bewildering, stultifying to the mind, in their magnitude and denseness and stupendous individual growths. The entire western slope of the main range is a solid belt of cedar and Douglas fir. There is spruce among the fir, and in the bottoms a little cotton wood and maple, but these lesser woods are unconsidered. The Douglas firs attain a size of from eighteen inches to eight feet in diameter. They shoot 100 feet in air without putting out a limb, and then, above the first limbs, they tower 100 feet higher, and often more than that. The cedars vary between a foot and a half to fifteen feet in thickness. The larger trees are hollow at the butt for many feet above the ground, but this still leaves from one to three feet of solid timber around each hollow core. Over thousands of square miles upon the forest bed lies the débris of another forest prone upon the ground, as if a tangle of toothpicks from 200 to 300 feet in length had been strewn upon the earth, and through and over this giant lace - work grows the forest of to-day. It is a The roots of the new trees straddle and ride the trunks of the old ones. The fallen firs are rotten, but the cedars are as stout and sound as when they reared their topmost branches beneath the eagle's path. Amid the dense moist undergrowth the dampness has forced coats of moss upon the prostrate giants. It is a solemn and an awful forest. It might be likened to a graveyard in which every upright column is the head-stone for a fallen fellow. Absolute silence reigns there, and daylight becomes twilight over the earth. task to see the sky. Far above his head the prospector in those pathless woods sees the wind swaying the tree-tops, and half hears their gentle murmuring, without being sure of the sound. There is no bird life in that oppressive solitude, no animal life, except that now and then a bear is seen. He who would penetrate the forest must be content to make two miles a day in a straight line, and then only by seesawing many miles to and fro, clambering from tree trunk to tree trunk, and patrolling the lengths of what fallen trees lead nearest to the course he would pursue. The forest has only been penetrated by the waterways. The Indians, the most expert canoe-men in the world, know nothing of it. Travel there is only where water takes it. The streams are the roadways, and canoes the red men's horses. Hunters and prospectors upon the eastern, more lightly timbered, slopes of the mountains report that great herds of mountain goats may be seen feeding close to the glaciers. The wool of these animals is used by the Indians. The skin is clipped close, and the wool is given to the squaws, who card it roughly, and then roll it on their bare thighs with their bare hands. They weave it with rude These figures tell the whole story of last year's wheat crop in Washington. They are the best that could be obtained as early as last Christmas. The Washington wheat fetched seventy cents a bushel, or about twelve and a half million dollars. The same authority from whom the above figures were obtained is of the opinion that without irrigation—that is to say, outside the lands that must be watered the State will eventually produce between forty millions and fifty millions of bushels of wheat. In a pamphlet issued by the State Board of Trade, and written by President N. G. Blalock, of the Washington World's Fair Commission, the advantages of the soil and climate for the cultivation of cereals are clearly set forth. The soil is very deep, and is a sedimentary deposit of volcanic origin, made up of a sandy loam, disintegrated basalt, and ash. It is porous, readily takes in and yields moisture, and allows the salts to rise to feed the growing crops. From year to year the climate varies but slightly, and where the rains are sufficient, they bring up and mature the grain without its being scorched. This writer has known wheat to be sowed in every month of the year. In the summer the ground is covered with dust thick enough to keep the moisture in the soil underneath. Wheat sowed in the dust between the months of June and September will spring up only after the autumn rains have set in. From September 15th to December 1st is the best time for seeding. There is no neces sity for haste in harvesting. The wheat need not even be stacked. If left stand ing it does not suffer. Though the harvesting begins in early July, "the machines are in the field until December, and occasionally the crop is left standing until the following spring." Thus a man in Washington can cultivate more land than he could in many other States where wheat is grown. The Federal statistics for 1890 showed that Washington's average yield per acre (23.5 bushels) was the highest in the United States. Mr. Blalock made a calculation of the cost and profit of wheat-raising, taking three successive crops that averaged thirty-two bushels to the acre. He found that the labor made it cost nineteen cents a bushel. To this he added interest on the value of the land for two years, and thus brought the cost to twenty-nine cents a bushel. As the crops sold for an average of fiftyfive cents a bushel, he found a profit of eight dollars and twenty-eight cents an These statements, which accord closely with my own deductions from all that I heard on the subject, are so remarkable, and reveal conditions and results so different from any that obtain in most parts of the other new States, that a study of Washington would be incomplete without them. acre. Spokane is the principal city of eastern Washington, and a good point from which to view the agricultural and mineral resources of the lands east of the Cascade Range. It used to be called Spokane Falls, after the falls in the Spokane River, which attracted the first settlers as a rallying-point, but the people dropped the word "Falls" in June, 1891, and Spokane is the city's full name. Long before its settlement the trails and roads from every point of the compass met there, and seemed to mark it as a natural distributing centre. Eight railroads meet there now. It is a dozen years old as a settlement, and now extends its broad streets and battalions of brick and stone buildings over a considerable part of the bowllike, level-bottomed basin in which it has been built. There are evergreen hills all around it, and upon one slope overlooking the town the well-to-do citizens have massed a considerable number of villas, many of which are both costly and handsome. Milling, the lumber trade, and jobbing in all the necessaries of life are its mainstays, and possibly by the time this is published it will have started up its smeltery to lead the new industry which many think must become its main one when, amid the development of the innumerable mines of eastern Washington, it shall have become a great mining town. Its jobbing trade in 1890 amounted to $21,565,000. Spokane is very enterprising. It has an opera-house that is the finest theatre west of the Mississippi River, and its Board of Trade, under the tireless energy of Mr. John R. Reavis, is incessantly at work to strengthen and enlarge the industries of the city. The place has 25,000 population. It lost 3000 last year as a result of the general monetary depression, but its gains continue, and the agricultural country tributary to it has grown steadily and suffered no set-backs. It trades with 200 towns, and talks with 60 over its telephone wires. Its water-power-having a minimum power of 32,000 horses-runs its electric cars, electric lights, cable-cars, printing presses, elevators, and all its small machinery. It is not rampant in its vices as most Northwestern cities are. Gambling is done under cover, the variety theatres are closed on Sundays, and there is even broached a proposition to close the saloons on Sunday. In justice to Spokane, I should explain that the leading men ascribe this mastery over public vice to the unique and high-toned character of the leading citizens, who embrace a large proportion of Eastern blood, and good Eastern blood at that. Such an explanation is highly necessary here, for in the new Northwest public morality is sometimes regarded as a concomitant of failing business powers. Happily I can vouch for the fact that Spokane society is leavened by a considerable class of proud and cultivated men and women, who live in charming homes, and maintain a delightful intercourse with one another. They make it a very gay city-they and the fine climate-and are fond of highbred horses, good dogs, and bright living, with dancing and amateur theatricals, good literature and fun. San Francisco is no longer peculiar in this respect, for Spokane shares her brilliancy among our Western cities. Close to Spokane is the famous Palouse country. The 1,300,000 acres of Whitman County, and 1,000,000 acres of Spokane County form this rich region, which bears various names in its minor exten sions, but is all alike in its extraordinary fertility. It was settled early by a class of immigrants known in the West as "Pikes," who came in 1844-54 from Missouri, Kentucky, Arkansas, Tennessee, and as far east as the Piedmont region. They were poor whites, and were a tall, angular, drawling band of blond men, lazy and shiftless, but of dauntless courage. They took up the bottom-lands between the rolling, timber-topped hills, beside the streams. In time they were driven to the hills, and then they discovered that more and better wheat could be raised there, without irrigation, than on the bottoms. This Palouse country is about 150 miles long, and averages 30 miles in width. It is said that in summer the soil is covered with a thick dust, and that in place of rain they have heavy dews. It is reputed to grow an extraordinary amount of wheat, and its yield really did reach 30 bushels in 1890. Wheat, barley, and flax are the great crops, but melons, all vegetables and fruits, both large and small, grow there as profusely, perhaps, as anywhere in our country. Berries of every kind, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, pears, and grapes all grow in abundance and of superfine quality. Land fetches $36 an acre, and will soon sell for $50. Eight hundred thousand acres of it is the rich land of which I speak, and of this 389,000 acres are in cultivation, 320,000 acres being in wheat. The land is all taken up. Farming has been done with small holdings, but moneyed men are now buying large tracts. In Colfax, the main town, the principal loaning brokers report that they know of no single failure there in the payment of interest upon loans last year. Walla Walla County, down in the same corner of the State, ranks next after the Palouse country. Its basaltic soil has been cultivated for forty years, and one farm of that age produced 40 bushels of wheat to the acre last year without fertilizers, of which, by-the-way, not any have ever been used. They irrigate there for small fruit, but not for wheat. They have 200,000 acres under cultivation, all but 50,000 acres being in wheat. Prunes, pears, enormous yields of strawberries, blackberries, and the finest (because the oldest) orchards are their most important products after the wheat. Walla Walla, the principal town, bears a name familiar even to the school-boys of 30 years ago. It is the seat of an old army post, is a beautiful town, and boasts a cultivated society. It has 5000 population, and though at one side of the main tide of travel, is growing slowly. It was once the great outfitting point for the mines of Idaho and Montana, and pack trains left there daily. A heap of nonsense is spoken and written about the Big Bend country in order to dispose of it. It is simply a fairly good wheat country, difficult to irrigate, and bound to be uncertain in its products until it is irrigated. How this shall be done is one of the great problems before the people of Washington-the greatest that confronts the people of the eastern part of the State. Elsewhere I have spoken of the strata or flows of lava that underlie it. The trouble is that this crops out in fields and bunches all over the region, as we see ice-floes in a harbor at the time of a thaw in the spring. There are pieces of good land between the outcroppings of volcanic rock, and some of these bits of good ground contain as much as twenty square miles of land all covered with grass. It is a high plateau, rolling far above the Columbia, which cuts a cañon through it. It has scarcely any other streams, and but few springs. It embraces the two large counties of Lincoln and Douglas. There are in it a million acres of land that can be cultivated. Only a small part is yet so utilized. In 1890 about 80,000 acres in Douglas County and 7000 acres in Lincoln County were under the plough, but it is believed that last autumn (1891) this sum of cultivated acres was doubled. There is some government land there, offering what is perhaps the best chance left in eastern Washington for "the homesteader," but he must irrigate or be prepared for great uncertainty in his crops. In 1890 the Big Bend wheat lands produced nearly 30 bushels to the acre; but in 1891 the yield was not over 15 bushels, dryness being the cause. An effort to get artesian water is being made near Waterville in Douglas County. If they find water, and it is abundant and not too far underground, the result will promise redemption to a great belt of soil that is second to none when it has moisture. The problem what to do with the sagebrush country is a greater one. It embraces Adams and Franklin counties, and lies between the Big Bend and the Palouse regions. It is sage-brush from end to end-nothing but sage and cactus and basalt rock, except that in Adams County there is some good land. The region has a rainfall of only nine inches. It too is all good land if water can be got to it. Vegetables and fruits grow well in it. The great Yakima tract across the Columbia is very promising. Small farmers are rapidly putting it under settlement and cultivation. They are growing fruits, vegetables, and alfalfa, the last to be marketed as hay. Hops also are grown in great abundance, and since this part of the country has not known the hop-louse, and is not damp enough to invite that pest, the outlook for a great hop industry there is most encouraging. The whole Yakima country was divided between railroad and government lands. The latter have been thrown open, and are all taken. The railroad lands were offered for very little before the Northern Pacific company experimented with its admirable schemes for irrigating the soil. Now the farms command high prices, and fetch them so easily that it is predicted that within 25 years Yakima Valley and County will be in as high state of cultivation as any part of the State. The rainfall is only about ten inches a year, and irrigation is necessary. The Northern Pacific Railroad is building a ditch sixty miles long, to be fed by water taken from the Yakima River at a point below that at which the river issues from the mountains. The ditch is an enormous one, and was built at great expense across ravines and all the irregularities of the country. Seventeen miles of it was ready for water in December last. It will moisten thousands of acres that once were purchasable at $1 50 each, but now are held at $45 an acre or more, because no lands in the State will be more productive, if the best judges reason correctly. With the sale of the irrigated lands, stock in the irrigation company is offered, and the scheme is so planned that when the land is all sold, the stock will all be in the hands of the farmers. It is likely that the farmers will then continue to pay water rents, and will divide the profits after the expense of maintaining the ditch and its laterals is defrayed each year. A second canal, 250 feet higher than the present one, is said to be contemplated, and an added supply of water is expected from three large lakes on the eastern slope of the Cascades. Thus the highland district of the Yakima country will also be brought under the ditch. This is the most extensive irrigation - work that I know of in the new States. It may not make the Yakima the richest section of eastern Washington, for it may not excel the Palouse or Walla Walla tracts, but it will be highly productive, and uncertainty about crops will be reduced to a minimum, Perhaps time will show the richest land to be in the future clearings of the big timber on the Pacific slope. I have spoken of the prospect of a great yield of hops in Yakima County in the future. The cultivation of hops is a source of large income to the State. The hop was first cultivated in the Puyallup region in 1866, and with such results that in 1890 the crop was 50,000 bales, about half of which was grown in the Puyallup fields. That crop was marketed for two millions of dollars. The industry has spread into the valleys of the White, Stuck, Snohomish, and Skagit rivers, all to the westward of the Cascades, at the feet of which rich valleys of alluvial soil of great depth have been formed. Since it is known that one hop-yard in England has been uninterruptedly cultivated for 300 years, there is no reason to look for a wearing out of the rich soil of West Washington. The Washington hops are of a high grade, and the yield, averaging 1600 pounds to the acre, is almost threefold that of the fields of England, Germany, and New York State. louse has now made its devastating presence felt in western Washington, and must be fought there as it has long been fought elsewhere. On account of this pest the Puyallup yield was reduced to fifty per cent. of what had been expected last year, and since the price was low, it was thought that the revenue from hops would not be above one million dollars. Hops have fetched more than a dollar a pound in the past; of late the prices have run from twenty cents to thirty cents. To produce them costs less than ten cents a pound in Washington. The hop North of Yakima is the Wenatchee Valley, reaching from the mountains to the Columbia. It is prophesied that this will prove an extremely rich fruit country. And this is measurably true of all the very numerous valleys that seam the mountains west and north of the Columbia, all the way around to Kettle Falls in |