460 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The fruits grown here are apples, pears, peaches, apricots, plums, prunes, 
quinces, grapes, cherries, nectarines and mulberries, besides all the kinds 
of small fruits found in the temperate zone. 
Besides the foregoing, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and peanuts find a con- 
genial home here on the orchard land. Alfalfa delights in a light soil, plenty 
of water and freedom from weeds. Tickle the earth here with a harrow, and 
it laughs with a bountiful harvest of this ‘“‘sage land clover.” 
Further up the Columbia good fruit can be grown on the first bench 
without artificial irrigation. The soil is stronger and more retentive. The 
yields, however, will not be so prodigious as in those spots where the rivers 
are brought into requisition and made to contribute something towards the 
success of the crop. All this narrow strip can be made the very best or- 
chard and alfalfa land. Watermelons, too, equal in abundance those of Geor- 
gia. Strawberries are very large and of the richest flavor. The vines too 
are exceedingly prolific. The same can be said of all small fruits. 
It is doubtful if there is a better all round fruit region in the whole coun- 
try than this. Even Californians admitted to me that this was ahead. 
Going back, east from the Columbia, across the ribbon just described, 
you come to the vast retaining wall which the river has made by cutting its 
way down through the solid rock, two thousand feet from its ancient bed on 
the surface of the great plateau, during the thousands of ages it has been at 
work. The margin of this table land is, in some places not more than two 
miles distant—sometimes much less than that, on a level as surveyors meas- 
ure, but you must find some canyon that divides the bluff and goes zigzag- 
ging at a very steep incline for five miles up to the prairie above. Here you 
enter a different and much colder climate. The greater altitude, the freer 
sweep of the winds, and the proximity of snow-capped mountains which half 
encircle it, all tend to reduce the temperature and lengthen the winters. 
Throughout Washington it is quite noticeable that climate is determined 
more by altitude than by latitude. Notwithstanding this fact, the winters 
here are not severe. The snows are heavy, but the Chinook winds soon melt 
them, and the water soaks into the ground to give the spring sowings an 
early start. 
In moving these five miles, our list of products grown must be altered 
to meet the new conditions. The peaches, apricots, nectarines, sweet pota- 
toes, watermelons, tomatoes, peanuts and squashes must nearly all be elimi- 
nated when this altitude is reached, but there are many compensations. 
The mountain air is pure as the crests of snow across which it blows. There 
is more ozone in it, more energy in the people. The soil is richer and more 
retentive. It will yield good crops of apples, pears, plums, prunes and 
cherries, though it cannot be irrrigated. A few favored spots will give 
quinces, apricots and even peaches, but these are unreliable. 
The quality of the fruits that are grown is nowhere excelled. The 
amount, too, that is carried by each tree is something once seen never to 
be forgotten. Take one glance at those pear trees lowing in the afternoon 
sun with their wealth of sumptuous, tempting specimens, all of which would 
have been a grand show lot for any county or even state fair east of the 
Rockies; take but a single glance at it, and the image of that tree will never 
be wholly obliterated. 
There is a region of country containing at least a million acres along 
the Columbia below Wenatchee, commencing near the point where the 
