678 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 
mammals and turtles which have been figured and described by Prof. E. D. 
Cope, the U, S. palaeontologist, in the Oregon Fauna. 
I was very much disappointed in Oregon. From what I had read in ray boy- 
hood, I supposed it was a rich farming country, with mild winters. I found it 
to consist of two distinct countries, as different from each other as Virginia is 
from Maine. Western Oregon, or the Willamette Valley ("a" pronounced like 
*'a" in am), is a rich fertile country, with warm winters. It is the farmer's par- 
adise : they raise from fifty to sixty bushels of wheat to the acre and let their land 
lie idle a year and reap forty bushels per acre as a volunteer crop. When I was 
there it was worth $i.oo per bushel in gold. 
They have a rainy season for their winter, and it rains nearly every day for 
four or five months. Fruit grows very luxuriantly, they raise peaches, pears, 
grapes, apples, prunes, etc. The people are hospitable, good natured and lazy. 
I have seen the ferns growing in the open fields. The north sides of their houses 
are covered with moss, — the people are called "moss-backs," or " web-footers." 
Sixty miles east, or east of the Cascade Range, we find an entirely different 
country. It is rough and mountainous with but little farming land, and this is 
only on the water-courses where it can be irrigated. It seldom rains, and the 
climate resembles the plains of western Kansas. It is used chiefly as a range 
for cattle and sheep. The stockmen are very careless and allow their stock to 
run at large ; they graze in the valleys and when these are eaten off go into the 
mountain. The consequence is that in winter the cattle are driven by the first 
storm into the valleys which they have already eaten bare, and many starve. If 
they were kept in the mountains in summer, where there is an endless range, the 
stockmen would find it to their advantage. Sheep are kept along the water- 
courses till they have destroyed the grass. I noticed along the Canon City & 
Dalles Road, that there was no grass on either side of the road for three miles. 
Sage-brush and grease-wood had taken the place of the luxuriant bunch-grass. 
Nine-tenths of Oregon is composed of this rough, hilly country, fit only for stock. 
They do not feed their stock during the winter, which is often quite severe, de- 
pending entirely on the range and unless the winters are unusually severe they 
come through in good shape. 
This is a splendid country for raising horses. They climb to the tops of the 
mountains in winter, where the snow has been blown off. I noticed a great deal 
of fine blooded stock. A stallion is given charge of a herd of mares, and he 
takes them to good grazing ground. The owners often see them but once or 
twice a year when they brand the colts. 
Lawrence, Kansas, February 4, 1884. 
