462 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



forest ranger also uses it as a station, and since the of carnation cream. They were fairly good, but ex- 

 owner was off to the mines, the ranger told us where travagant for the woods. We cooked our last eggs, 

 to find the key and to help ourselves to anything we that is what was left in the shells, for 1 had dropped 

 needed in food and pay when we came back. the bucket once. When Mr. Lowry is gone his cats 

 We were in by three. We had loitered by the way, keej) house. There is a cat hole in the door. I love 



lounged by the 

 river, cooked our 

 dinner, picked 

 berries, measured 

 .trees and esti- 

 mated their board 

 feet in our heads. 

 We had neither 

 paper, pencil nor 

 tape measure with 

 us and we wanted 

 to estimate the 

 lurnber in one of 

 the large trees 

 among the cedars. 

 I have tested and 

 know that I can 

 depend upon my 

 nose to measure a 

 yard. So, by re- 

 laying our two 

 shawl straps, on 

 which we carried 

 the field glasses 

 and marking sta- 

 tions we succeed- 

 ed in measuring 

 the circumference 

 breast high. I 

 have been estimat- 

 ing the height of the lowest branches of our firs and 

 cedars for ten years so felt safe in saying it was one 

 hundred feet to the lowest branches. While we 

 stretched ourselves on the moss by the river, with 

 these two dimensions, our arithmetic and forestry 

 formulae, we mentally did our reckoning, proving our 

 mental computations by comparing results. We found 

 the tree to be a little over ten feet in diameter breast 

 high and to contain over 65,000 board feet of lumber. 

 A real school-ma'am-y amusement. It occurred to us 

 to reckon how many homes could be built out of the 

 tree, but we lacked data and it began to seem like 

 work. However, I know that from such trees often 

 only half of one cutting of shakes at the butt is needed 

 to build a woodman's cabin. 



The cabin at Herman is decidedly superior to the 

 ordinary bachelor's cabin in the woods, and only a 

 woods tramper knows how to appreciate these little 

 homes in the woods. From the front porch we looked 

 over the Nooksack river to the mountains. Ruth 

 mountain, jagged, precipitous and yet snow covered, 

 flushed in the light of the setting sun, was the center 

 of the picture. I made hot biscuits for supper and 

 since I could find neither lard nor bacon I made them 



The 



a cat and was de- 

 lighted to see 

 them at first, but 

 between the heat 

 of the little room 

 we c o u 1 d n't 

 leave the door 

 ()]jen because of 

 the mosquitoes 

 and the racket of 

 the cats, we slept 

 so little that we 

 made a late start 

 in the morning. 

 When we came 

 hack I closed the 

 cat hole and the 

 cats slept in the 

 open for once in 

 their lives. 



I have lived for 

 weeks in the 

 woods fourteen 

 miles from a road, 

 and the freedom 

 from noises of 

 civilization, the 

 silence of the for- 

 est broken only 

 by the musical 

 sound of rippling water or falling twigs, is very fa- 

 miliar and fascinating. Into this the ring of a tele- 

 ])hone bell was as startling as a team of horses. But 

 it was a very friendly sound when we heard the voice 

 of Forest Ranger McGuire at Glacier asking how we 

 had made the trip. The installation of the telephone 

 is a long step in forestry towards closer protection of 

 the forest. Trails, telephones and lookout stations are 

 an absolute necessity in the control of fires. 



After breakfast we started for Twin Lakes, six 

 and one-half miles farther on and 3,000 feet farther u]). 

 It is the way to many gold mines and the forestry trail 

 building crew of seven men were just completing a 

 trail to the Lakes. They are- far up among the jieaks, 

 two mountain lakes of exquisite blue shading from 

 indigo to emerald, floating tiny ice-bergs, in places 

 bordered by banks of icy snow, surrounded by slopes 

 of snow and clumps of alpine flowers and trees and by 

 huge buttes that framed the distant peaks of Red 

 mountain and a magnificient view of Koma Kulshan. 

 The water from one lake empties into the other by 

 little resounding falls and from this lake the water 

 cascades down the mountain sides as Swamp creek. 

 Fven creeks have an individuality. This one is inter- 



MT. BAKER FROM HELIOTROPE RIDGE 



snow wall that appears to be about three feet high is more than one hundred and fifty 

 feet high. A wonderful view of the mountain is to be had from the Heliotrope trail. 



