STEEP TRAILS 



the icy winters was well-nigh impossible to 

 poor farmers. 



Along the coast and throughout the greater 

 part of western Oregon hi general, snow sel- 

 dom falls on the lowlands to a greater depth 

 than a few inches, and never lies long. Grass 

 is green all winter. The average tempera- 

 ture for the year in the Willamette Valley is 

 about 52, the highest and lowest being about 

 100 and 20, though occasionally a much 

 lower temperature is reached. 



The average rainfall is about fifty or fifty- 

 five inches in the Willamette Valley, and along 

 the coast seventy-five inches, or even more 

 at some points figures that bring many a 

 dreary night and day to mind, however fine 

 the effect on the great evergreen woods and 

 the fields of the farmers. The rainy season 

 begins in September or October and lasts until 

 April or May. Then the whole country is sol- 

 emnly soaked and poulticed with the gray, 

 streaming clouds and fogs, night and day, with 

 marvelous constancy. Towards the beginning 

 and end of the season a good many bright days 

 occur to break the pouring gloom, but whole 

 months of rain, continuous, or nearly so, are 

 not at all rare. Astronomers beneath these 

 Oregon skies would have a dull tune of it. Of 

 all the year only about one fourth of the days 



284 



