Abstract :
The first time I made the trip through the Spokane Valley was on a hot July afternoon nearly twelve years ago. Most of it was dry pasture land, but here and there were fields of grain, many of them already cut, bound and shocked. This seemed unusual to me for that time of the year, for in my own neighborhood, some 80 miles (128 km.) south of this, the grain would not be ready to cut for some four weeks yet. Under these conditions it looked quite dry, parched and dusty. Houses were few and far between, and the bright sun shining on the whiteness of dry grass and stubble made the tree-covered hills at each side of the valley look far more inviting.
