One of the World’s Wheat-fields 211 
valley or the top of mount Hood.” He made mea very inter- 
esting report, in which it was stated that he regarded the soil as 
the best wheat-producing soil he had ever examined; that it 
contained properties very similar to the soil of Sicily, where 
wheat had been raised for 2,000 years without exhausting the 
soil. The report further stated that the soil was of such char- 
acter that it would fertilize itself as cultivated; that it would 
not be necessary to let it rest after a crop or two, as in many 
portions of the country, or to fertilize it. The predictions made 
in that report have been amply verified. Two years ago I 
visited Umatilla county and what was formerly the Umatilla 
Indian reservation, and was told that there had been raised and 
harvested that year in that county alone over 4,500,000 bushels 
of wheat. That this single county will produce 5,000,000 bushels 
of the best quality of wheat the present year, or an amount con- 
siderably more than was produced in 1893 in any one of twenty- 
one different states in the Union, I have not the slightest doubt. 
In addition, it is estimated that there will be shipped the 
present year from the city of Pendleton, the county seat of Uma- 
tilla county, located on the transcontinental railroad, 5,000,000 
pounds of wool, while from The Dalles, the county seat of Wasco 
county, an equal quantity will be shipped. A large portion of 
the state, notably Umatilla, Union, and Baker counties, with 
several others in the eastern section, and Coos and Curry coun- 
ties in the southwestern portion, are admirably adapted to sugar- 
beet culture. The beets grown here are said to yield a larger 
percentage of saccharine matter than those produced elsewhere ; 
while 20 tons per acre is a moderate estimate of the annual crop. 
The Forests of Oregon. 
Another source of immense wealth in the state of Oregon is her 
forests. No state in the Union has a greater variety of valuable 
trees or fine woods. These include sugar pine and silver pine, 
cedar, red, yellow and white fir, redwood, and spruce of different 
varieties ; ash, hemlock, maple, myrtle, white oak, laurel, alder, 
dogwood, wild cherry, hazel, chittamwood, and Oregon yew; 
three species of poplar—the quaking asp, cottonwood and bal- 
sam tree; live-oak and chestnut oak, nutmeg, tamarack, moun- 
tain mahogany, juniper, birch, box elder, and many other 
varieties. In addition, there are the vine maple, growing from 
