The first mile or two is along the open road. A brown, rather dusty track in the center, beaten hard by the travel; on either side a broad band of short grass; and snake-fences, built of logs ten feet long, piled seven high, and interlaced at the ends. In the angles of nearly every panel of the fence grows a rose-bush, now covered with young buds, just showing crimson tips. As we canter by, a meadow-lark gives us a stave of half-finished song from the top of the fence, and flits off to pitch some fifty yards away, in the young green wheat, and try again at his song. The bird is nearly as large as an English thrush, with speckled breast, and a bright-yellow patch under the tail. Just in front of us, on the fence, sits a little hawk, so tame that he moves not till we pass him, and then by turns follows and precedes us along the road, settling again and again upon the tallest rails. He is gayly dressed indeed, with a russet-brown back and head, and a yellow and brown barred and speckled chest, and all the keenness of eye one looks for in his tribe. [Sidenote: _SNAKES._] Early as it is, here and there in the road is one of the little brown snakes that abound in the valley; seduced from his hole by the warm sun, he is enjoying himself in the dust, and only just has time to glide hastily away as the horse-hoofs threaten his life. Their harmlessness and use in waging war on beetles, worms, and frogs, ought to save their lives; but they are snakes, and that suffices to cause every passer-by to strike at them with his staff. The face of the country is vivid green, the autumn-sown wheat nearly knee-high, and the oats running the wheat a race in height and thickness. The orchard-trees close to the farmhouse we are approaching stand clothed from head to foot in flower; the pear-trees, whose branches are not now curved and bent with fruit, tower as white pyramids above the heads of the blushing apples. Close by the orchard-fence the ewes and lambs feed, the little ones leaping high and throwing themselves away with the mere joy of warm sun and young life. The farmer sees us coming, and scolds back the rough sheep-dog noisily barking at the strangers as he comes to his gate to shake hands. "Won't you hitch your horse and come in?" he says; "I want you to look at these bees--I have got six swarms already." And under the garden-fence stands a long, low-boarded roof, and under it a whole row of boxes and barrels, of all ages and sizes, with a noisy multitude coming and going. Straw hives are unknown, and any old tea-chest is used. Not much refinement about bee-keeping in Oregon; but honey fetches from thirty to fifty cents a pound.