We are passing beautiful farms. Here we see a group of splendid dappled grey Percheron draught horses, the pride of a stock-farm. There we pass reddish-yellow shocks of oats. The country is more wooded now. We see maples, oaks, ash, willows, and black walnuts. Here and there are yellow wild flowers, somewhat like black-eyed Susans. One thing we remark in all these Middle Western farms. There seem to be almost no flowers around the farm houses. An English farmhouse or a French farmhouse would have a riot of flowers growing all about and making a mass of color. We miss this in our Western farms and wonder why it is that we see so little color. We see practically no orchards, and very few grape-vines. This is the country of wheat and oats. We have left the orchards and the vineyards far behind us in lovely California. Cedar Rapids is a busy city with several hotels. Leaving the city on the morning of July 21st, we drive first through quite heavily wooded country. Then the view opens out and we are once more driving over beautiful, undulating country with rich crops of oats and corn. The perfume of the corn, standing tall and green, is delicious. When we pass through Mt. Vernon, we take a look at the buildings of Wesleyan College, which stands on a high ridge commanding a fine view. All the way to Clinton the country is attractive. After luncheon at the pleasant town of Clinton, we cross the broad Mississippi, looking up and down its green shores with delight. We are in Illinois now, and find Sterling and Dixon attractive towns on the Rock River, a stream dotted with green islands. The country is very open, with long stretches of prairie, green with standing corn or red-yellow with shocks of oats. We spend the night in De Kalb at a funny old hotel, built, they tell us, by Mr. Glidden, the "barbed-wire king." The hotel is called "The Glidden." Its ceilings are twenty feet high and we feel ourselves to be in "a banquet hall deserted." From De Kalb we make a short detour into Chicago, returning to the Highway at Joliet. Joliet is a smoky city, full of factories and busy with the world's work. It is late afternoon when we reach Joliet, and we drive on to Elkhart, where we put up at a beautiful hotel with every modern convenience. The Indiana roads are in excellent condition and take us through a lovely rolling country of oaks and beech forests, and of fields of grain breathing pastoral peace and prosperity.