Even if the land were bare and desolate-looking to a degree, and the farmhouse stood naked and unattractive, yet it was found that apples and pears would grow, and even that peaches would ripen well in a hotter and drier summer climate than is found elsewhere in Oregon. And when the results of the first experiments were disclosed, and it was found that wheat yielded thirty, forty, and even fifty bushels to the acre on these very lands, the tide turned. [Sidenote: _EASTERN OREGON._] Men who had decried Eastern Oregon as a desert, fit only to pasture a few cattle and scattering bands of sheep, suddenly changed their tone, and nothing was heard from them but advice to leave the worn-out lands of the Willamette Valley, and go to this, which was the coming country. And advantage was at once taken of this state of things to prepare the public mind for, and then to take up vast sums of money to provide, railroad and increased steamboat accommodation to bring the products of these eastern plains within reach of Portland and the seaboard. What is this country like? The Columbia bounds the north, the Snake River the east of Oregon--the one running east and west, the other north and south. Nearly midway between the Cascade Mountains and the Snake River, the Blue Mountains run, roughly speaking, north and south. This range is much less elevated than the Cascades, but very wide, and rises gradually from far-reaching foot-hills about the center of the State. Between the Blue Mountains and the Cascades lies a great stretch of open, rolling country--bare, rocky hills, not a tree and hardly a bush to be seen; until lately covered with bunch-grass and some sage-brush. This is some of the country to which the change of purpose applies which I have just described. The prevailing color of the country is a reddish-brown, except when in spring a tinge of living green spreads with the growing grass. Near the Cascade Mountains are wide tracts covered with fine volcanic lava-dust. Where there is moisture to be found, this soil supports a good growth of grass, and the pine timber stretches to its edge. But joining it come the bare alkaline plains. Their natural vegetation is the bunch-grass and the sage-brush (_Artemisia_). The chief constituents in the alkaline formation are chlorides of sodium and potassium--demanding irrigation as the remedy for the excess of alkali, while beet-root is recommended as a first crop to absorb the surplus salt. Excellent crops are raised in the Ochico Valley, on this land; and there is no doubt that a very large portion of the tracts now being abandoned by the cattle- and sheep-herder will prove of enormous productiveness in wheat.