We did not start on our long journey, which was to mount up to 8,600 miles in distance, until the 21st of April. Before that we had a delightful northern trip of one hundred and twenty miles in a friend's motor car; crossing the ferry and driving through Petaluma, Sonoma Valley, and Santa Rosa, on to Ukiah. Coming through Petaluma our host told us that we were in "Henville." I had supposed that chickens would do well anywhere in sunny California, but not so. There are districts where the fog gets into the throats of the fowls and kills them. Sonoma County is particularly adapted for chicken raising and there are hundreds of successful chicken growers in this region. As we came through Santa Rosa, we saw the modest home and the office and gardens of Luther Burbank. Beyond Santa Rosa we entered what our host called the Switzerland of California. The roads are only ordinary country roads and very hilly at that, but the rolling green fields and glimpses of distant hills, with heavy forests here and there, are very beautiful. I saw for the first time in all its spring glory the glowing California poppy. Great masses of bright orange yellow were painted against the lush green of the thick hillside grass; masses that fairly radiated light. Alongside these patches of flaming yellow were other patches of the deep blue lupine. Some great painter should immortalize the spring fields of California. The wonderful greenness of the grass, the glowing masses of yellow, and the deep gentian blue of the lupine would rank with the coloring of McWhirter's "Tyrol in Springtime." California in the spring is an ideal State in which to motor. We were sorry that we could not accept our host's invitation to motor still farther north into Lake County, a county of rough roads but fine scenery. Northern California has not yet been developed or exploited for tourists as has the southern part of the State, but there is beautiful scenery in all the counties north of San Francisco. As we drove through Sonoma (Half Moon) Valley, we saw the green slopes of Jack London's ranch, not many miles away. Jack London's recent book, "The Valley of the Half Moon," describes the scenery of this region.