While we were traveling through this valley we were greeted with some familiar sights and sounds. These were the American box car and locomotive and the sound of the whistle of a U. S. A. train. We greeted the American rolling stock as companions, and were truely glad to see them. We could easily distinguish between the sound of the whistle of an American locomotive and that of a French engine, the American whistle being deep and the French shrill. It may seem strange to think that I comment upon such a small matter as a locomotive whistle, but when one is in a foreign land, amid foreign scenes and sounds, a familiar sound is good to hear, even though it is as unmusical as a deep blast of an American-made locomotive. Our next stop at a place of importance was at Tours--historic Tours. This is a city of more than 100,000 inhabitants and is one of the most interesting cities in France. I spent several weeks here in a hospital after being gassed on the Metz front and I will speak in more detail of this city in a later chapter. At Tours we were given more freedom than at any previous stop, and here our officers bought chocolates, tobacco and fruit and distributed them among the men. These dainties were the first we had since leaving Brest and were surely appreciated. After leaving Tours we continued to wind through the Valley of the Loire along the Loire River, and I must say that the vineyards and orchards between Tours and Orleans, our next stop, were the prettiest that I saw in all of France. In this particular part of the valley the trees and vines are exceedingly prolific, as compared with trees and vines in other parts of France. They are not, however, as prolific as those of California. The trees do not attain as large a growth as those of this State and the vines are less vigorous. The fruit is neither as large nor does it have the quality of ours. The 1918 fruit crop was a large one, as measured by French standards, but yield per acre, I am sure, would be small as compared with the yield per acre of a first class Sacramento river orchard. The difference of the quality and the yield as compared with our fruits, is undoubtedly due to the fact that for centuries the lands of the Loire have been cultivated, while our lands are new and contain all their natural richness. The vineyards are planted differently from ours. The vines are four feet apart one way and eight feet apart another, while ours are usually planted eight or ten feet apart each way. Having been reared on a California vineyard, I was naturally very much interested in the vineyards of France, and I examined those that I had the opportunity of visiting very carefully. I inspected some of the grapes that were pronounced first class by French vineyardists, and found them to be very inferior to California grapes. The berries were smaller and they contained less juice.