Passing down the hill and by the farmhouse at the foot, with its great barn and blooming orchard, we strike the road once more, passing for a mile or two between wheat-fields, with the Mary River on the left closed from our sight by the screen of firs that follow it all the way along; then by a bridge and by other farms, and between fir-woods of thickly standing trees, and up and down hill, with here and there a level valley in between, we strike the Mary River again for the last time, and climb the Summit Hill. We are twenty-two miles from our starting-point, and claim a meal and rest. We are among old friends as we ride up to Crain's to dine, and the noonday sun is hot enough for us to enjoy the cool breeze among the young firs behind the house, as we stand to wash hands and face by the bench on the side of the dairy built over the stream close by. The horses know their way to the barn, to stand with slackened sinches, and nuzzle into the sweet timothy-hay with which the racks are filled. [Sidenote: _THE YAQUINA VALLEY._] On our way once more, in half an hour we stand on the edge of the water-shed, and look down far into the Yaquina Valley, lying deep between rugged and broken hills below. As we dip below the crest, the character of the vegetation changes at once. We have left the thick woods behind. The last of the tall green firs clothes the crest we have passed, and the black burned timber is dotted along the hill-sides. Last year's brake-fern clothes the hills in dull yellow and brown, except where patches of thimble-berry and salmon-berry bushes have usurped its place. The wild-strawberry has been almost entirely left behind, and instead there is the blackberry-vine trailing everywhere along the rough ground, and casting its purple-tinged tracery over the fallen logs. There is plenty of grass among the fern, and the wild-pea grows erect as yet, not having length enough to bend and creep. The river Yaquina comes down from a wild, rough valley to the right, to be crossed by a wooden bridge close to a farmhouse on rising ground. Two of our recently arrived Englishmen have bought this place, and are well satisfied with their position. About eight hundred acres of their own land, of which quite three hundred are cultivable in grain, though not nearly all now in crop, and really unlimited free range on the hills all round for stock; some valley-land which produces everything it is asked; a garden-patch where potatoes grew this year, one of which was six pounds in weight; a comfortable house and substantial barn; a trout-stream by their doors; a railroad in near prospect to bring them within two hours of a market at either end; and, meanwhile, a demand at home for all the oats and hay they can raise for sale--it would be strange, indeed, I think, if they who had supposed they were coming into a wilderness with everything to make, were not well pleased.