When reminded that when I was a boy anyone living three miles away was considered out of the neighborhood: "Yes, but things is different in Oregon," which I readily admitted, having just passed a schoolhouse with but seven scholars, and remembered the six hundred or eight hundred and twelve hundred acre farms we had passed.

I was also reminded of my boyhood days when father spoke approvingly if I plowed two acres a day, and to harrow ten acres was the biggest kind of a day's work. I queried in my mind which was the best condition of things, the big farms and farming a business proposition, or the small farms with the home surroundings. I had been told that "that man over there has been there twenty-six years and don't raise fruit enough for his own use." Money-making was his object and he had no time to "fool with fruit trees or garden truck." Then I was reminded of the time we cut the wheat with a sickle, or maybe with the hand cradle, and thresh it out with horses on the barn floor. Sometimes we had a fanning mill, and how it would make my arms ache to turn the crank; then at other times if a stiff breeze sprung up the wheat and chaff would be shaken loosely from an elevation and the chaff would be blown away, or if all other means failed two stout arms at either end of a blanket or a sheet would move it as a fan to "clean" the wheat.

Now we not only see the gang plows with eight horses plowing eight acres a day and hear that the gasoline traction engine is doing even better than that, and not only see the harrow cover 40 acres a day instead of 10, but see the great combination harvester garner thirty acres a day and instead of the flail, thresh it as well and sack it ready for the mill or warehouse—no shocking, no stacking or housing—all in one operation, preparing the grain ready for market. What a change this, in three-quarters of a century, the span of one life.

As we traveled eastward and the Blue Mountains came in distant view and half a day's brisk travel brought us within close proximity of wheat fields well up to approaching the snow line, the country became less broken, the soil seemed better, the rainfall, we were told, being better, the yield of wheat greater and fifty bushels is reported as not an unusual crop. We began to see the red barns, the comfortable farmhouse (wide apart though, for the farms are large) and ten horses to the team the rule and oftentime three teams in a field each turning three furrows instead of one as in the olden times. Finally as we approached the Walla Walla Valley the scene changed, the large farms disappeared, the small holdings became the rule and orchards were to be seen everywhere as we pass that historic point, the site of the tragedy of Whitman, and are soon in camp in the very heart of the thriving city of Walla Walla.

PENDLETON, OREGON.

A fourteen days' drive to Pendleton, Oregon, 138½ miles, without meeting any success in interesting people to help in the work, was not inspiring. On this stretch, with two assistants, the Trail was marked with boulders and cedar posts at intersections with traveled roads, river crossings and noted camping places, but no center of population was encountered until I reached the town of Pendleton. Here the Commercial Club took hold with a will, provided the funds to inscribe a stone monument, which was installed, and on the 31st of March dedicated it, with over a thousand people present. Here one assistant was discharged, the camera and photo supplies stored, a small kodak purchased, and the load otherwise lightened by shipping tent, stove, stereopticon and other et ceteras over the Blue Mountains to La Grande.

On that evening I drove out six miles to the Indian school in a fierce wind and rain storm that set in soon after the dedication ceremonies, on my way over the Blue Mountains.

A night in the wagon without fire in cold weather and with scant supper was enough to cool one's ardor; but zero was reached when the next morning information was given out that eighteen inches of snow had fallen on the mountains. However, with the morning sun came a warm reception from the authorities of the school, a room with a stove in it allotted us, and a command to help ourselves to fuel.

THE BLUE MOUNTAINS.