I recalled my boyhood days when father spoke approvingly if I plowed two acres a day, and when to harrow ten acres was the biggest kind of a day's work. I also recalled the time when we cut the wheat with a sickle, or maybe with a hand cradle, and threshed it out with horses on the barn floor. Sometimes we had a fanning mill, and how it would make my arms ache to turn the crank! At other times, if a stiff breeze sprang up, the wheat and chaff would be shaken loose and the chaff would be blown away. If all other means failed, two stout arms at either end of a blanket or a sheet would move the sheet as a fan to clean the wheat. Now we see the great combination harvester garner thirty acres a day, and thresh it as well and sack it ready for the mill or warehouse. There is no shocking, no stacking or housing: all in one operation, the grain is made ready for market. [Illustration: _Brown Bros._ In spite of the wide-spreading farms and fruit orchards, there are still forests in Washington and Oregon, and lumbering is still a great industry.] As we journeyed eastward, the Blue Mountains came into distant view. Half a day's brisk travel brought us well up toward the snow line. The country became less broken, the soil seemed better, the rainfall had been greater. We began to see red barns and comfortable farmhouses, still set wide apart, though, for the farms are large. In the Walla Walla valley the scene is different. Smaller farms are the rule and orchards are to be seen everywhere. We now passed the historic spot where the Whitman massacre occurred in 1847. Soon afterward we were in camp in the very heart of the thriving city of Walla Walla. It was near here that I had met my father when I crossed by the Natchess Pass Trail in 1854. Another day's travel brought us to Pendleton, Oregon. Here the Commercial Club took hold with a will and provided funds for a stone monument. On the last day of March it was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies. That evening I drove out to the Indian school in a fierce rainstorm to talk to the teachers and pupils about the Oregon Trail. A night in the wagon without fire and with only a scant supper sent my spirits down to zero. Nor did they rise when I learned next morning that the snow had fallen eighteen inches deep in the mountains. However, with this news came a warm invitation from the school authorities to use a room they had allotted to us, with a stove, and to help ourselves to fuel. That cheered us up greatly. There was doubt whether we could cross the Blue Mountains in all this snow. I decided to investigate; so I took the train. About midnight I was landed in the snow at Meacham, with no visible light in the hotel and no track beaten to it. Morning confirmed the report of the storm; twenty inches of snow had fallen in the mountains. An old mountaineer told me, "Yes, it is possible to cross, but I warn you it will be a hard job."