being the only points in the landscape
that rise above the timberline. Nevertheless, embosomed in this forest
and lying in the great trough between the Cascades and coast mountains,
there are some of the best bread-bearing valleys to be found in the
world. The largest of these are the Willamette, Umpqua, and Rogue River
Valleys. Inasmuch as a considerable portion of these main valleys was
treeless, or nearly so, as well as surpassingly fertile, they were the
first to attract settlers; and the Willamette, being at once the largest
and nearest to tide water, was settled first of all, and now contains
the greater portion of the population and wealth of the State.

The climate of this section, like the corresponding portion of
Washington, is rather damp and sloppy throughout the winter months,
but the summers are bright, ripening the wheat and allowing it to be
garnered in good condition. Taken as a whole, the weather is bland and
kindly, and like the forest trees the crops and cattle grow plump and
sound in it. So also do the people; children ripen well and grow up with
limbs of good size and fiber and, unless overworked in the woods, live
to a good old age, hale and hearty.

But, like every other happy valley in the world, the sunshine of this
one is not without its shadows. Malarial fevers are not unknown in some
places, and untimely frosts and rains may at long intervals in
some measure disappoint the hopes of the husbandman. Many a tale,
good-natured or otherwise, is told concerning the overflowing abundance
of the Oregon rains. Once an English traveler, as the story goes, went
to a store to make some purchases and on leaving found that rain was
falling; therefore, not liking to get wet, he stepped back to wait
till the shower was over. Seeing no signs of clearing, he soon became
impatient and inquired of the storekeeper how long he thought the shower
would be likely to last. Going to the door and looking wisely into the
gray sky and noting the direction of the wind, the latter replied that
he thought the shower would probably last about six months, an opinion
that of course disgusted the fault-finding Briton with the "blawsted
country," though in fact it is but little if at all wetter or cloudier
than his own.

No climate seems the best for everybody. Many there be who waste their
lives in a vain search for weather with which no fault may be found,
keeping themselves and their families in constant motion, like floa