blackberries and loganberries about them, using the stumps for
trellises. These berries in the climate of western Washington are
wonderfully prolific and find a greedy market.


COMPENSATIONS.

There are several facts about making farms out of logged-off lands
which should not be lost sight of, because they largely compensate
for the labor spent in the undertaking. One of these is that the
problem of fuel is solved for a lifetime and for the coming generation.
Five acres can be left untouched as a reserve and in a remarkably
few years it will re-forest itself.
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The growth of trees under the humid atmosphere of western Washington
is astonishing, and a very few years will suffice to provide one
with a wood lot to last a generation. Meanwhile some of the fir
logs and alder and maple trees will be preserved from the fire and
piled up to provide fuel for the years until the wood lot furnishes
a fresh green supply.

Then, too, as has already been suggested, the fence question, no
small item in a prairie country, is satisfactorily answered with no
expenditure but for labor. The cedar logs, splitting with ease, can
be turned into rails or boards or posts--preferably the former--and
the rails put on top of each other between two posts fastened together
at the top make as good a hog-tight and cattle-proof fence as can
be desired, and these rails will last in the fence for a century.
For the house, doubtless more satisfaction can be had by patronizing
the nearest saw-mill, although many houses made out of split cedar