American Big Game in its Haunts 



even to touch its great prickly leaves, nearly as 

 big as an elephant's ear; if there be a malignant 

 old rogue of the vegetable kingdom, this is he, 

 sharing with the wait-a-bit thorn of Africa an evil 

 eminence. Many new plants meet the eye, a 

 wealth of berries — the Oregon grape, the salmon 

 berry, red or yellow, as big as the yolk of an egg, 

 the salal berry, any quantity of blueberries, huckle- 

 berries, both red and blue, sarvis berries, bear ber- 

 ries, mountain ash berries (also loved of bears), 

 thimble berries, high bush cranberries, goose- 

 berries — large and insipid — currants, wild cherries, 

 choke cherries; many of these friends of old, 

 others seen here for the first time, dainty picking 

 in the autumn for deer, bears, foxes, squirrels and 

 many birds. What particularly appealed to 

 me was a wild apple, no larger than the eye of 

 a hawk, but quite able to survive in a fierce con- 

 test for life, and with a pleasant, clean, sharp 

 taste, very tonic to the palate, and with diminutive 

 rosy cheeks as tempting as a stout Baldwin — 

 a fine, courageous little product of the wild life, 

 symbol of the energetic quality of the Olympic 

 air. I, for one, am a firm believer in the axiom 

 that a climate which will give the right "tang" to 

 an apple will also produce determined and ener- 

 getic men; this whole region, spite of its fogs, 



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