Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/55

 Here too are growing wonderful ferns,—long feathery fronds, just such as we buy of the florists at home, who call them “Boston ferns.” Here they are found growing wild, three or four feet high; a reckless profusion of them in all moist shady places. Think of this, and groan, the next time you pay a dollar for a little stingy one six inches high! The moss about this spring is exquisite, as if woven by fairy fingers, of tiny velvety ferns. In fact, the Oregon moss is wonderful; it covers trees, stumps, rocks, fences, and even the roofs of houses. Tom says the moss business is overdone here; but I like it.

At one side of the lawn is a large orchard, bearing fine apples, pears, peaches, plums, prunes, and cherries; and winding through this bower of lusciousness is a little path leading to the garden,—a pretty place, all embowered by trees, giving it that touch of seclusion so dear to the heart of the gardener. Just above the garden is another spring, hidden away in a tangle of greenery. Back of the house is a precipitous hill, crowned with fir, laurel, and young oak trees, the latter draped with pendent fringes of silvery moss, in fine contrast with the green of the firs; while straggling down toward the house are trees of various kinds, clumps of bushes, and tall brown ferns, with a perfect network of dewberry vines covering the ground and forming a snare for the foot of the unwary. Here too is fine old oak with mistletoe growing in its branches.