THE FORESTS OF WASHINGTON 



reaches of the rivers, there are comparatively 

 few spots of cultivation in western Washing- 

 ton. On every meadow or opening of any kind 

 some one will be found keeping cattle, plant- 

 ing hop-vines, or raising hay, vegetables, and 

 patches of grain. All the large spaces avail- 

 able, even back near the summits of the Cas- 

 cade Mountains, were occupied long ago. The 

 newcomers, building their cabins where the 

 beavers once built theirs, keep a few cows and 

 industriously seek to enlarge their small mea- 

 dow patches by chopping, girdling, and burn- 

 ing the edge of the encircling forest, gnawing 

 like beavers, and scratching for a living among 

 the blackened stumps and logs, regarding the 

 trees as their greatest enemies a sort of 

 larger pernicious weed immensely difficult to 

 get rid of. 



But all these are as yet mere spots, making 

 no visible scar in the distance and leaving the 

 grand stretches of the forest as wild as they 

 were before the discovery of the continent. For 

 many years the axe has been busy around the 

 shores of the Sound and chips have been fall- 

 ing hi perpetual storm like flakes of snow. The 

 best of the timber has been cut for a distance 

 of eight or ten miles from the water and to a 

 much greater distance along the streams deep 

 enough to float the logs. Railroads, too, have 



243 



