Fro7n the Ohio to the Pacific. 281 



FROM THE OHIO TO THE PACIFIC. 



By Robert Buchanan, Cincinnati, Ohio. 



Mr. Editor : You have asked me for an article on Horticulture ; 

 and perhaps I cannot do better than to give you an account of what I 

 saw in California, in September last, on an excursion to the Pacific. 

 Our party of fifty persons — eighteen ladies and thirty-two gentlemen 

 — left Cincinnati on the 31st of August, in two palace sleeping-cars, 

 with a commissary car — liberally supplied — and a baggage car. We 

 crossed the Missouri River at Omaha, Nebraska, spending half a day 

 in that new city of fifteen thousand inhabitants, having thus far travelled 

 about eight hundred miles. Here we took the Union Pacific Railroad, 

 and passed up the beautiful valley of the Platte River, five hundred and 

 sixteen miles to Cheyenne, in the Rocky Mountains. At Sherman, 

 thirty-three miles farther, we reached the highest elevation on the route, 

 eight thousand, two hundred and thirty-five feet. 



The railway route generally follows the old emigrant road, through 

 what was called the "South Pass," and is an easy grade — on the 

 plains and valleys, nearly level. The ascent and descent over the slopes 

 of the Rocky Mountains is so gradual as to attract but little attention ; 

 but in passing around the sides of the Sierra Nevadas, it is altogether 

 different, and sometimes alarming. To look out on a rugged peak, a 

 thousand feet above and three thousand feet below you, as the road is 

 winding around it, is rather startling. The mountains have but little 

 timber, except a few pines and cedars on their slopes and near the 

 summits. The Wahsatch Mountains are still more rugged, and less sub- 

 ject to disintegration ; but the Sierra Nevadas, covered wth evergreen 

 trees, for wild and picturesque grandeur, are unequalled by any others 

 on this portion of the continent. At Wintah, near the " Devil's Gate," 

 a mountain gorge, we left the cars, and passed up the Valley of Salt 

 Lake in stages, thirty-two miles, to Salt Lake City. 



In this valley, for the first time since we left the lower part of the 

 Platte, we saw signs of agricultural prosperity. We passed many fine 



