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.
[Page 38]
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
timbers and boards are in the state, proofs at once of the usefulness
of this timber and the hardihood and ingenuity of the rancher.
But for the barn and stable, pig-stye, hennery, chicken-coop and
fruit boxes, and a great many other things, the rancher patronizes
his reserve log pile instead of the lumber yard, and saves time
and labor in so doing. Another fact which compensates the rancher
in western Washington in the struggle for a home which will provide
a safe and generous support in his old age is that during all the
labor and waiting he is enjoying a delightful climate, in which no
blizzard drives him from his work. No cyclone endangers his life
and fortune. No snakes lurk in the underbrush. No clouds of dust
blind his eyes. No sultry summer suns make him gasp for breath,
and no intense cold freezes his face or feet. He can work if he
wishes as many days as there are in the year, and know that every
stroke of his axe or mattock is a part of his capital safely invested
that will pay back an annual dividend for a lifetime. No soil will
respond to his energy more quickly or more generously.

There is one more possible compensation. Fir logs and stumps and
roots and bark are all full of pitch. Factories are now in operation
that are turning this