Christmas tree cultivation tractors, and shaper sheers. Mechanized planters, at a cost of about US$4,000, are not essential but a work-saving luxury for farmers. Farmers can purchase seedlings, the lifeblood of a Christmas tree farm, from nurseries. One farmer in Oregon purchased seedlings for between US$200–300 per 1,000 plants. The farmer, a wholesaler, sold his final products for about $20 each; after the cost of the trees and other expenses, a profit of $2–3 per tree. The best-selling species in the North American market are Scots pine, Douglas-fir, noble fir, balsam fir, Fraser fir, Virginia pine, and eastern white pine, although other types
Steamboats of the Lower Fraser River and Harrison Lake draft steamer. A Hudson's Bay fort at Fort Langley, sat some inland from tidewater. Regular steamer service ran on the Fraser River as far as Yale and also shortly afterwards via the Harrison River up to the head of Harrison Lake, where a townsite named Port Douglas became the port of disembarkation for the Douglas Road, also known as the Lakes Route or Lillooet Trail, which ran via a series of lakes and wagon-road portages to Cayoosh Flat, the other major boomtown of the early gold rush alongside Yale and Port Douglas. One Cariboo Gold Rush diarist noted In 1881