Highways and byways of the Pacific coast . most brought me to a stop. Yet by climbingalong on fences or resorting to the embankment of anirrigating ditch, or by cutting across a field I contrivedto continue my ramble. The country was good to look at in spite of the over-abundance of mud and water. On the eastern horizonrose ranges of snowy mountains, but the lowlands werea green paradise. The grazing fields, in particular,were very beautiful with their cattle, horses, or hogs,and with their scattering ancient oaks. These oaksabounded, but never gathered in a thick wood. Theywere wide-spreading
Highways and byways of the Pacific coast . most brought me to a stop. Yet by climbingalong on fences or resorting to the embankment of anirrigating ditch, or by cutting across a field I contrivedto continue my ramble. The country was good to look at in spite of the over-abundance of mud and water. On the eastern horizonrose ranges of snowy mountains, but the lowlands werea green paradise. The grazing fields, in particular,were very beautiful with their cattle, horses, or hogs,and with their scattering ancient oaks. These oaksabounded, but never gathered in a thick wood. Theywere wide-spreading and stately and made the countrylook like a park. Other native trees were very few,except along the streams, which were apt to be thicklyscreened by willows and cottonwoods. Many greattracts of land were set out to regular rows of prune andpeach trees, and every farmhouse seemed to have itspacking shed and its great heap of wooden pears were a staple fruit, but some sort of ablight has put the trees out of TL A Vale of Plenty 129 The people I met and spoke with were agreed thatit was an unusual condition to have too much water, andthe owners of the flooded lands were not altogetherhappy, yet any damage they suffered was largely offsetby the drowning of such pests as the gophers and groundsquirrels. The local conditions therefore were on thewhole satisfactory, but certain other sections had notfared so well. For instance, in the same county, thereused to be a lake thirty miles broad and a hundredlong. It afforded fine fishing, and the hunters resortedto it to shoot the abounding ducks and geese. Graduallyit dried away and left some of the richest farmland inthe world. The old lake-bed became a great wheat-producing district, but now the heavy rains had begunto fill the basin of the former lake, and the body of waterwas fast expanding to its former size. The wheat hadgrown to be waist high and was well headed out, butthe lake-bed dwellers had to
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