WILD PARKS OF THE WEST 25 



chose of birds and squirrels ; far less so than 

 those of the beavers, which have dammed streams 

 and made clearings that will endure for centu- 

 ries. Nor is there much in these woods to at- 

 tract cattle-keepers. Some of the first settlers 

 made farms on the small bits of prairie and in 

 the comparatively open Cowlitz and Chehalis 

 valleys of Washington ; but before the gold 

 period most of the immigrants from the Eastern 

 States settled in the fertile and open Willamette 

 Valley of Oregon. Even now, when the search 

 for tillable land is so keen, excepting the bottom- 

 lands of the rivers around Puget Sound, there 

 are few cleared spots in all western Washington. 

 On every meadow or opening of any sort some 

 one will be found keeping cattle, raising hops, 

 or cultivating patches of grain, but these spots 

 are few and far between. All the larger spaces 

 were taken long ago ; therefore most of the 

 newcomers build their cabins where the beavers 

 built theirs. They keep a few cows, laboriously 

 widen their little meadow openings by hacking, 

 girdling, and burning the rim of the close-press- 

 ing forest, and scratch and plant among the huge 

 blackened logs and stumps, girdling and killing 

 themselves in killing the trees. 



Most of the farm lands of Washington and 

 Oregon, excepting the valleys of the Willamette 

 and Rogue rivers, lie on the east side of the 

 mountains. The forests on the eastern slopes 



