The annual production of wheat in Walla Walla county is about 5,000,000 bushels. Barley is also a profitable crop. Oats and some corn are also raised. Large crops of alfalfa hay are annually marketed, chiefly from irrigated lands. Fruit of all kinds is abundant. There are 2,500 acres devoted to orchards. Market gardening is an important and growing industry. TRANSPORTATION. There are 310 miles of railroads in this county, both the Northern Pacific and Oregon Railroad & Navigation Company railroads competing for the traffic. In addition to the railroads, steamboats are plying the rivers around the edge of the county, giving additional facilities for transportation. PRINCIPAL CITIES AND TOWNS. WALLA WALLA, the county seat, has a population of about 22,000 and is the commercial center for the southeastern part of the state. Its streets are paved. The city owns its own system of water, at a cost of $600,000. It is lighted with electricity and gas, has large banks and business houses, U. S. land office, U. S. courts, U. S. cavalry post, an Odd Fellows' home, and a Home for Widows and Orphans. There are manufacturing industries employing 400 men, turning out $2,000,000 of productions annually. An electric system of street cars traverses the streets and is projected into several other near-by towns. WAITSBURG is an important agricultural town of about 1,600 people, in the western part of the county, having both railroad systems, and ships great quantities of grain. It has large flouring mills, warehouses, fine schools and churches, and is a prosperous, thriving town. A large number of shipping points on both systems of railroads are growing commercial centers. WHATCOM COUNTY Whatcom county lies on the boundary of British Columbia, stretching from the Straits of Georgia to the peaks of the Cascade mountains--24 miles wide and 100 miles long, The eastern half or more of the county is included in the national forest reserve, with Mount Baker, 10,827 feet high, in the center of the county. It is one of the important counties on tide water, and has an area of 2,226 square miles and a population of about 70,000. [Page 88] The climate is not different from the general Puget sound climate being mild and healthful. There are no severe storms, no sultry heat and no severe cold. RESOURCES. It is estimated that Whatcom county has three billion feet of standing timber. This is its greatest source of wealth. The western half of the county, outside of the lumbering, etc., is blessed with a wealth of soil responding to the farmer's labor generously. The eastern half of the county is essentially a mountainous, forest-covered mining region, and has in store many veins of nearly all the metals. Game of great variety of animals and fowls and fish are abundant. INDUSTRIES.