Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/167

 From Youth to Age as an American. 149 which newspaper reporters made equal to them, but an apple grower knows better. Big red apples on trees fifty years old, utterly neglected for the thirty latest years, bear no compari- son in quality to the same kind from ten-year-old trees on new ground. Trees live by water, but the soil does its part, and the grower who utterly neglects that will in the end take a back seat as an orchardist. On the other hand, as to the influence of trees on water flow, my experience and observa- tion leads to the conviction that trees are the result of moisture in, under, or on the soil they grow in ; that the longer the growing season, the larger the crop of fruit and leafage will be, and the more water will be withheld from reaching the summer channels. The water is taken up by the wood, leaves and fruit, or drawn into the clouds by evaporation, possibly to float off in some cases to modify and make better the climate of other districts. These opinions were formed in my mind while I was ac- tively engaged in draining my beaver dams, greatly reducing my beautiful aspen grove, which was the chief food supply of the beavers, and the most beautiful scenic feature of a beautiful home, conspicuous as such between Ashland and Portland, and where I have known twenty teams, several of four horses each, to stop for the night, the owners depending on my field or barn for their hay. The chief enemies of early home building were the carni- vori, of which the large wolf was the most destructive, at- tacking all kinds of stock, colts being their most easy prey, next calves and young cattle. They kept range cattle wild and made swine band together in self defense. They ate up the first two swine I owned, and all their young but one. They ran in familie* most of the year, I think. I never saw more than seven or eight together, and were so voracious that they were easily poisoned, leaving the small wolf, or coyote, the most cunning and active pest. The largest panthers I ever saw were killed on the same day, near the same spot, by a half- sick boy of sixteen— with a little Indian camp dog and charges