he Snowy Mountains, we found the Ponderosa pine, and soon the Flexilis
pine, wherever a rocky ridge is lifted above the level of the plains, so
that these trees were in sight a large share of the time, even far away
from large rivers and groups of mountains. If a homestead anywhere in
that state is not cozily protected by bright colored evergreens it is
not because there is any difficulty in getting trees that will thrive in
that soil.

[Illustration: A young Ponderosa pine.]

The Snowy Mountains are in the center of Montana, quite unsheltered from
the other ranges of the Rockies. It is the meeting place of the flora of
the mountains and the plains. I think it is the eastern limit of that
peerless tree of the Rockies, the Douglas fir. I gave my impressions of
this tree to the society a year or two ago. I am still more in love with
it from what I again saw last August in its native Snowy Mountains, and
from the bright, sturdy little trees that have been growing at my home
in Minnesota for two years past, giving assurance of their willingness
to be transplanted to our moister air. It is the coming evergreen for
the prairies, and it will be a happy day for all who plant an evergreen
west of the natural timber when the Douglas fir has displaced the trees
that come from the cool, moist forests of Europe and the sheltered woods
of our own lake regions.

I think the Snowys are also about the eastern limit of the little
broad-leaved evergreen called the Oregon grape, that I believe every one
in Minnesota can grow for Christmas greens. From my first acquaintance
with it I got the impression that it required shade, but this time I
noted that it was growing all over the bare ridges that radiate from the
mountains, wherever it was possible for a little snow to lodge. We can
substitute a light sprinkling of straw when snow is lacking. It
certainly does not require shade.

The Mariposa lily is a unique flower that springs up in open places and
produces a white blossom about the size and shape of the wild morning
glory. It grows about a foot high and produces one or two flowers on
each stalk. It must have a long period of bloom for ripe seed pods, and
blooming plants were common at the same time in August.

The Canadian buffalo berry and a dwarfish birch are two mountain plants
of no small ornamental value for the plains. They may not endure the
moister air near the Mississippi, but there we have already many useful
natives, like