The Gushman House 
LAKE GUSHMAN, WASH. 
was to put it in the bottom of the car. They grow cottonwoods 
there, planting them afound the houses. They are different from 
our cottonwoods, growing more like a Lombardy poplar, tall and 
slender. The alfalfa is wonderful and it is very interesting to 
see their methods of harvesting with their big four horse rakes 
and stackers. Above the ditch it is all sage brush, and it is a 
barren looking country, but it only needs the touSh of water to 
make it a garden. 
We had dinner with cur friends and left Ellensburg 
(F' 
at 8.45. This took us through the Yakima country and across the 
Columbia by ni^ht, so I missed all that. Yakima is a countr y made 
by water , it was an utter desert originally, and now one of the 
gardens of the world. 
bay broke to show us a desert, desolate count rarest 
of Spokane, brown, bare,with here and there a little shack and no 
other sign of human habitation for miles. They raise wheat, and 
it is shipped from the little towns along the line, but the loneli¬ 
ness of it all is awful. I suppose we are really more cut off,in 
the winter, than they are, but we have the mountains and the trees. 
It is not a level prairie, far from it, low rounded hills and shal¬ 
low draws with outcrops of black basal tlwhich look like rows of 
black weather worn posts set on end close together.As we neared 
Spokane we found some timber, a sort of Norway pine,but very small 
after our bouglas fir and Cedar. It is a basalt formation alto¬ 
gether, and oh, so barren. Speaking of it to the Supt. of Irriga¬ 
tion and bramage of the interior Dept. I said, "It looked like the 
last spot God made""Perhaps, but He made Nevada too". 
We saw nothing of Spokane as our train was late and we simply 
changed cars. South of Spokane the country gets better, the hills 
are bolder and there is not so much basalt, practically none 
