udes principally the area within the big bend of the
Columbia river, the "Big Bend Country," which stretches eastward until
it blends with the rolling Palouse, one of the richest farm regions in
the northwest, and southeast across the Snake River to the Blue
Mountains; although considerable wheat is raised in the country lying
between the Columbia and the Cascades, as well as in the four counties
to the north. The green carpet is visible, in spring, and the waving
heads of yellow grain, in summer, extending away to the horizon. The
combined harvester, drawn by thirty-six horses, is a familiar example of
the immensity of the machinery needed when gathering the mammoth crop,
which for the entire state is in the neighborhood of 50,000,000 bushels
annually.

The Big Bend is broken in places by "coulees" or old river courses,
sometimes 500 to 600 feet in depth, where irrigation is practiced and
where strings of small alkali lakes have been scattered. Two of the most
important are Moses Coulee in Douglas county, and Grand Coulee forming
the boundary line between Douglas and Grant counties, said to be the old
bed of the Columbia. Almost surrounded by the wheat belt lies the Quincy
Valley, containing 435,000 acres of level fertile land to be some day
irrigated by water conducted under the Columbia river from Wenatchee
Lake in Chelan county.

The best known lakes include Soap Lake, a health resort, Moses Lake,
near which irrigation from wells is successfully carried on, and Rock
Lake, a rock bound sheet of water in the Palouse. The most important
river is the Palouse which creates the Palouse Falls just before joining
the Snake River. Near this stream are several prosperous cities,
including Colfax, Palouse, and Pullman, the home of the State College
and Experiment Station.

THE WALLA WALLA COUNTRY.

The Snake river, largest tributary of the Columbia, with a canyon of
1,500 feet, cuts this plateau in two, and forms a natural dividing line
between Whitman and Franklin counties on the north, and Walla Walla,
Columbia, Garfield, and Asotin on the south. Its warm canyon is famous
for early fruits and berries which are shipped in carloads to eastern
and western points.

Fields of wheat, barley or rye extend southward in all four counties to
the Blue Mountains, interrupted occasionally by orchards which assume
their greatest proportions in the beautiful Touchet and Walla Walla
valleys. Over this rich country the fair city of W