Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/99

Rh and fat cattle—the fattest and sleekest that ever we remember to have seen—sufficient proof of the nutritious qualities of "bunch-grass."

Just above the garrison-grounds is a beautiful view of Mount Adams, and another of Mount Hood. The little stream we are following up seems as if it came directly from the latter mountain, which does not look far off, but very real and solid, and near. We fancy that an hour's ride would take us up among the highest firs, quite to the glistening snow-fields; but it is forty miles away, still, with a very rough country between hither and yon, so that our hour would have to be lengthened to very many.

Chenoweth Creek, Three-mile Creek, and Five and Fifteen-mile Creek Valleys are all occupied by settlers. In every new country the first-comers choose the creek-bottoms and lowest valley-lands; especially in so dry a country as Eastern Oregon they have been considered of the greatest value. But farmers are commencing to experiment with wheat-growing on the uplands. To their own surprise they find the hills to be good grain-fields. Once the prejudice against the high-and-dry, rolling plains is done away with, there is no estimating the results; and yet we should say, on sight, that this country was only fit for grazing. So the fertile plains of California were once considered worthless for cultivation.

Wasco County, of which Dalles is the shire-town, extends along the Columbia River fully sixty miles, and toward the south nearly two hundred, covering an immense amount of territory; and is drained by two rivers, of one hundred and fifty and two hundred miles in length. The whole population, probably, does not reach four thousand; all those out of Dalles being