--girls in short frocks with rake in hand, and
boys comfortably smoking their clay pipes--and received from all an
honest German greeting. Everything here had a German aspect--the houses
pleasantly shaded by foliage, the barns, stables and well-cultivated
fields, the flower and kitchen-gardens, the white church-steeple rising
from a green hill: nothing but the fences which enclose the fields
reminded us that we were in America.

The doctor's residence was surrounded by a high white picket-fence:
stately, widespreading live-oaks shaded it, and the spacious courtyard
had a neat and carefully-kept aspect. Crowing cocks, and hens each with
her brood, were scratching and picking about, the geese cackled, and
several well-trained dogs gave us a noisy welcome. Upon our asking for
the doctor, a friendly German matron directed us to the orchard, whither
we immediately turned our steps. A really magnificent sight met our
eyes--thousands of trees, whose branches, covered with the finest fruit,
were so loaded that it had been necessary to place props under many of
them, lest they should break beneath the weight of their luscious
burden.

Here we soon discovered the renowned doctor, in a toilette the very
opposite of regal, zealously engaged in gathering his apples. He was
standing on a high ladder, in his shirt sleeves, a cotton apron, a straw
hat, picking the rosy-cheeked fruit in a hand-basket. Several laborers
were busy under the trees assorting the gathered apples, and carefully
packing in boxes the choicest of them--really splendid specimens of this
fruit, which attains its utmost perfection in Oregon. As soon as the
doctor perceived us he came down from the ladder, and asked somewhat
sharply what our business there might be. My companion handed him the
letters of introduction he had brought with him, which the doctor read
attentively through: he then introduced my humble self as a literary man
and assistant editor of a well-known magazine, who had come to Oregon
for the special purpose of visiting Dr. Keil, and of inspecting his
colony, of which such favorable reports had reached us. Without waiting
for the doctor's reply, I asked him whether he were not a relative of
K----, the principal editor of the magazine to which I was attached. I
could scarcely, as it appeared, have hit upon a more opportune question,
for the doctor was evidently flattered, and became at once extremely
affable toward us. The relationship to which I h