part each way. Having been reared on a
California vineyard, I was naturally very much interested in the
vineyards of France, and I examined those that I had the opportunity
of visiting very carefully. I inspected some of the grapes that were
pronounced first class by French vineyardists, and found them to be
very inferior to California grapes. The berries were smaller and they
contained less juice.

The farther we traveled into the interior of France, the more
interested the people became in us. In other words, the nearer we came
to the scene of action, the greater was the enthusiasm of the French
people over our arrival. While we excited but small interest in the
small towns on the coast, as we got closer to the front, there were
delegations of women and children at the station waving to us at every
small or large town through which we passed. Cries of "Vive
L'Amerique" were more frequent, and we had hopes that the persistent
"donnez moi" would be heard less frequently, but it was not. We never
ceased hearing it as long as there were French children around.

We arrived at Orleans late in the evening of the third day of our
trip, and here we received a very hearty welcome from the American Red
Cross, as we did at Tours. The station at Orleans was more like an
American station than any that we had yet seen in France. It was large
and equipped with several tracks, as are most American stations.
Orleans is full of interest, but we were not permitted to stop there
long. We continued on our journey all night and the next day were out
of the Valley of the Loire and into a hilly section. While the scenery
was attractive, there were fewer cultivated areas and the soil was
less productive. We now began to see more of the American war
activities in France. We saw tented cities that had been built for
troops in record time; we saw camps where American soldiers were being
drilled; and we saw great quantities of American implements of war
such as airplanes, ammunition, light and heavy artillery, etc. In this
region we also passed three hospital trains coming from the front with
American soldiers who had been wounded, and we knew we were getting
very near the fighting. We also noticed a decided difference in the
French inhabitants. We detected a deeper interest in the war among
these people who were so near the battle line than in those farther
away, and we noted that not a young man was to be seen among the
civilians in eastern Fr