spot of the state, at least so far as I have seen. Great stretches 
of the most fertile alluvial soil, almost as level as a floor, al¬ 
most all cleared, and in cultivation, with here and there little 
groves of most wonderful oaks. There are some cottonwwods also, 
and I imagine the main growth of timber was this. It is, however, 
subject to overflow which comes in the summer, or late spring when 
the water comes down from the upper reaches of the Columbia in the 
Canadian Rockies, some of it is under dyke for the first time last 
year ^hen they had the highest water since '94, at which time it 
was 29 ft. above low tide. At this time, last June, the water reached 
§he 21 ft. level and washed away an unfinished dyke and flooded 
the entire district protected^ an area of 13000 acres. Even then 
oats planted July 20 reached a height of 5 ft. and an old school¬ 
mate of my son '6 told him he fed green oats to his stock till# the 
week before Xmas. I sa^ some 9 of this grain. We found a splendid 
farm for sale and we are much pleased with it, but people ^ho know 
much more about it than we advise against it, at least till we 
have seen it in June and July. This place of 140 acres with a tre¬ 
mendous two story house and big barn was offered us for *16000.00 
with an additional tax of $64.00 per acre distributed over 15 years 
for the dyke. This place is just outside the town of Woodland and 
this summer when the last six miles of the Pacific Highway is com¬ 
pleted will have a concrete road to# Portland and beyond, I dont 
know how far, and north to the Canadian border- Portland with its 
markets is but two hours by car, I think 34 miles, some people would 
make it in less. You may have seen that kind. 
Bee, rov second boy is with me, having cut a few months 
out of his last year- He has just finished and only a day or two 
ago got his election to Phi Kappa Phi- His older brother missed it 
by .04, having had a low grade in an English coarse several years 
^ Ua(X'^ vvvMa 
back which he had neglected to make up. It was a great disappoint¬ 
ment to him. In locking over some notebooks for ane which Ferd had 
