human
we came suddenly out on Grande Ronde valley, and were amazed at its beauty and fertility. At first view, it seemed almost circular, and looked like a vast bowl hollowed out of the mountains there. Mountains bristling with pine or fir-trees rimmed it in on all sides, while in their midst the valley reposed, as if a dried up lake. Some thirty miles in length, by twenty-five in width, it contains over six hundred square miles of the very washings of the mountains--the whole as rich and fertile as a garden. Cedar, fir, pine, and oak abound in the embracing mountains; but the valley itself is as bare of timber, as an Illinois prairie. Numberless springs burst out of the mountain sides, and coalescing into streams gridiron the valley--uniting at last in Grande Ronde River, which flows thence to the Snake. In places, we were told, there are hot mineral springs also, but we saw none of these. The edges of the valley--seemingly like the rim of a plate--were already sprinkled well with ranches, while horses, cattle, and sheep by the thousand were grazing off in the bottoms. But few houses appeared in the bottoms yet--the settlers apparently preferring to hug the mountains. The wheat crop of the valley that year alone was computed at half a million of bushels, and large quantities of oats, barley, potatoes etc., had been raised besides. Indian corn, or maize, however, had never flourished well, and it was doubted if it would--it being so far north. Even here, though, irrigation had to be resorted to for most summer crops, but down in the bottoms grass grew luxuriantly without this. Grande Ronde, indeed, resembles the great parks of Colorado, only her soil is far finer, and if cultivated to the full, along with Powder River and Burnt River, would alone supply Idaho with pretty much all she needs. We met old settlers there, who years before had emigrated thither from Missouri and Illinois, tempted by the wondrous beauty and fertility of the place, and one could not wonder at their choice of a home. In all that region we saw nothing like Grande Ronde, and indeed but few places to compare with it from the Missouri to the Columbia. Its only drawback seemed to be the severe winds, which prevail there much of the year. It appeared strange, that a valley so embosomed in mountains should be troubled so with winds. But it seemed to be a sort of funnel, and they said the winds were often fierce and continuous there, for long periods together. Nevertheless, unless these approximate to hurricanes or tempests, we could only say,
gpt
Blessed be the man who dwells in Grande Ronde!
human
Our House,