The Far-Famed Oregon Forests Cover All The Western Section Of The
State, The Mountains As Well As The Lowlands, With The Exception Of A
Few Gravelly Spots And Open Spaces In The Central Portions Of The
Great Cultivated Valleys.
Beginning on the coast, where their outer
ranks are drenched and buffeted by wind-driven scud from the sea,
They
press on in close, majestic ranks over the coast mountains, across the
broad central valleys, and over the Cascade Range, broken and halted
only by the few great peaks that rise like islands above the sea of
evergreens.
In descending the eastern slopes of the Cascades the rich, abounding,
triumphant exuberance of the trees is quickly subdued; they become
smaller, grow wide apart, leaving dry spaces without moss covering or
underbrush, and before the foot of the range is reached, fail
altogether, stayed by the drouth of the interior almost as suddenly as
on the western margin they are stayed by the sea. Here and there at
wide intervals on the eastern plains patches of a small pine (Pinus
contorta) are found, and a scattering growth of juniper, used by the
settlers mostly for fence posts and firewood. Along the stream
bottoms there is usually more or less of cottonwood and willow, which,
though yielding inferior timber, is yet highly prized in this bare
region. On the Blue Mountains there is pine, spruce, fir, and larch
in abundance for every use, but beyond this range there is nothing
that may be called a forest in the Columbia River basin, until we
reach the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; and these Rocky Mountain
forests are made up of trees which, compared with the giants of the
Pacific Slope, are mere saplings.
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