it is almost impossible to get through them; and they form one of the most serious obstructions to surveying, or hunting, in the mountains. The leaf is parted in seven dentated points, and is of a light green. These bushes make a handsome thicket at any time from early spring to late autumn—being ornamented with small red flowers in spring, and with brilliant scarlet leaves in autumn.
Another shrubby tree, which makes dense thickets in low or overflowed lands, is the Oregon crab-apple (Pirus Rivularis). This really pretty tree grows in groves of twenty feet in height, and so closely as with its tough, thorny branches to form impenetrable barriers against any but the smaller animals of the forest. The fruit is small and good-flavored, growing in clusters. The tree is a good one to graft upon, being hardy and fine-grained.
Another tree used to graft on is the wild cherry (Cerasus Mollis), which closely resembles the cultivated kinds, except in its small and bitter fruit. In open places it becomes a branching, handsome shade tree, but in damp ravines sometimes shoots up seventy feet high, having its foliage all near the top.
When we undertake to pierce the woods of the Coast Mountains, we find, in the first place, the ground covered as thickly as they can stand with trees from three to fourteen feet in diameter; and from seventy to three hundred feet in height. Wherever there is room made by decay, or fire, or tempest, springs up another thicker growth, of which the most fortunately located will live, to the exclusion of the others. Every ravine, creek, margin, or springy piece of ground is densely covered with vine-maple, cottonwood, or crab-apple.
As if these were not enough for the soil to support,
