IN GREEN ALASKA 



In the trees about the hamlet of Shoshone I first 

 made acquaintance with the house finch, a bird 

 with quivering flight and bright, cheery song. It 

 suggests our purple finch, and seems to be as much 

 of a house and home bird as is the ugly English 

 sparrow. The Arkansas flycatcher also was com- 

 mon here, taking the place of our kingbird. 



In Idaho we reach a land presided over by the 

 goddess Irrigation. Here she has made the desert 

 bloom as the rose. We see her servitors even in the 

 streets of large towns, in the shape of great water- 

 wheels turned by the current, out of which they 

 lift water up into troughs that distribute it right 

 and left into orchards and gardens. Here may the 

 dwellers well say with the Psalmist, " I will lift up 

 mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my 

 help." 



The Oregon Short Line Railroad takes the gen- 

 eral direction of the old Oregon trail along Snake 

 River through Idaho and Oregon. It is a treeless 

 country, save for the hand of man and the water 

 from the hills. Vast patches of the original sage- 

 brush alternate with vineyards and orchards, — 

 orchards of peaches, prunes, and apricots, — or 

 with meadows and grain-fields. Where the irrigat- 

 ing-ditch can be carried, there the earth is clothed 

 with grass or grain or verdure. Baptize the savage 

 sagebrush plain with water and it becomes a Chris- 

 tian orchard and wheatfield. Now we begin to 

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