late No. 88.--Typical Farm Scenes in Whatcom County.]

PRINCIPAL CITIES AND TOWNS.

BELLINGHAM, on a salt-water bay of the same name, is the county
seat, and commercial metropolis not only for this county but much
other territory. It has a population of about 40,000 people. Into
it all the railroads center, while the harbor is one of the best
in Washington. It is largely a manufacturing town, having plants
for the production of sash, doors, columns, tin cans, boilers,
engines, flour and feed, canned fish, condensed milk, and many
others. It is a substantial, live business community of wide-awake
people, and growing rapidly. It has a gravity water system, electric
lights, and gas plant.

BLAINE is a city of about 3,000 inhabitants, situated close to the
Canadian line and on the Great Northern railway. Timber and lumber
manufactures are the chief sources of its prosperity. Fishing and the
canning of salmon are also important industries. The railroad
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company has recently expended considerable sums in improving its
facilities. Blaine is a growing community.

SUMAS, on the Canadian border, is a lumbering town of 1,100 people.

LYNDEN is an agricultural center of 1,200 citizens.

FERNDALE is a lumber center of 1,000 people. Besides, there are a
dozen smaller business centers in the county, growing and prosperous.

WHITMAN COUNTY

Whitman county is one of the chief agricultural counties of the
state, lying immediately south of Spokane county and on the Idaho
state line, having the Snake river for its southern boundary. The
county is a plateau of rolling prairie lands, a large portion of
which is farmed, watered by a number of streams, which are utilized
for irrigation purposes in some of the bottom lands--although the
rainfall is sufficient to mature crops, and no irrigation is had
on the great bulk of the farms. The area is about 2,000 square
miles. The population is about 40,000. The soil is a strong mixture
of volcanic ash and clay of great fertility and permanence. Twenty
years of wheat-growing still leaves the soil able to produce from
25 to 50 bushels per acre.

RESOURCES.

All the resources of the county originate in this splendid soil.
For growing all the cereals and fruits and vegetables it has no
superior. The county is well settled, and probably no county can
excel Whitman county in the per capita wealth of its farmers. The
products of the county are varied, and include wheat, oats, barley