becoming brown by roasting, sweet and delicious to every palate, and

are eaten by birds, squirrels, dogs, horses, and man. When the crop
is abundant the Indians bring in large quantities for sale; they are

eaten around every fireside in the State, and oftentimes fed to horses
instead of barley.

Looking over the whole continent, none of Nature's bounties seems to
me so great as this in the way of food, none so little appreciated.

Fortunately for the Indians and wild animals that gather around
Nature's board, this crop is not easily harvested in a monopolizing

way. If it could be gathered like wheat the whole would be carried
away and dissipated in towns, leaving the brave inhabitants of these

wilds to starve.
Long before the harvest time, which is in September and October, the

Indians examine the trees with keen discernment, and inasmuch as the
cones require two years to mature from the first appearance of the

little red rosettes of the fertile flowers, the scarcity or abundance
of the crop may be predicted more than a year in advance. Squirrels,

and worms, and Clarke crows, make haste to begin the harvest. When
the crop is ripe the Indians make ready their long beating-poles;

baskets, bags, rags, mats, are gotten together. The squaws out among
the settlers at service, washing and drudging, assemble at the family

huts; the men leave their ranch work; all, old and young, are mounted
on ponies, and set off in great glee to the nut lands, forming

cavalcades curiouslypicturesque. Flaming scarfs and calico skirts
stream loosely over the knotty ponies, usually two squaws astride of

each, with the small baby midgets bandaged in baskets slung on their
backs, or balanced upon the saddle-bow, while the nut baskets and

water jars project from either side, and the long beating-poles, like
old-fashioned lances, angle out in every direction.

Arrived at some central point already fixed upon, where water and
grass is found, the squaws with baskets, the men with poles, ascend

the ridges to the laden trees, followed by the children; beating
begins with loud noise and chatter; the burs fly right and left,

lodging against stones and sagebrush; the squaws and children gather
them with fine natural gladness; smoke columns speedily mark the

joyful scene of their labors as the roasting fires are kindled; and,
at night, assembled in circles, garrulous as jays, the first grand nut

feast begins. Sufficient quantities are thus obtained in a few weeks
to last all winter.

The Indians also gather several species of berries and dry them to
vary their stores, and a few deer and grouse are killed on the

mountains, besides immense numbers of rabbits and hares; but the pine-nuts
are their main dependence--their staff of life, their bread.

Insects also, scarce noticed by man, come in for their share of this
fine bounty. Eggs are deposited, and the baby grubs, happy fellows,

find themselves in a sweet world of plenty, feeding their way through
the heart of the cone from one nut chamber to another, secure from

rain and wind and heat, until their wings are grown and they are ready
to launch out into the free ocean of air and light.

XIV
Nevada's Timber Belt[19]

The pine woods on the tops of the Nevada mountains are already shining
and blooming in winter snow, making a most blessedly refreshing

appearance to the weary traveler down on the gray plains. During the
fiery days of summer the whole of this vast region seems so perfectly

possessed by the sun that the very memories of pine trees and snow are
in danger of being burned away, leaving one but little more than dust

and metal. But since these first winter blessings have come, the
wealth and beauty of the landscapes have come fairly into view, and

one is rendered capable of looking and seeing.
The grand nut harvest is over, as far as the Indians are concerned,

though perhaps less than one bushel in a thousand of the whole crop
has been gathered. But the squirrels and birds are still busily

engaged, and by the time that Nature's ends are accomplished, every
nut will doubtless have been put to use.

All of the nine Nevada conifers mentioned in my last letter are also
found in California, excepting only the Rocky Mountain spruce, which I

have not observed westward of the Snake Range. So greatly, however,
have they been made to vary by differences of soil and climate, that

most of them appear as distinctspecies. Without seeming in any way
dwarfed or repressed in habit, they nowhere develop to anything like

California dimensions. A height of fifty feet and diameter of twelve
or fourteen inches would probably be found to be above the average

size of those cut for lumber. On the margin of the Carson and
Humboldt Sink the larger sage bushes are called "heavy timber"; and to

the settlers here any tree seems large enough for saw-logs.
Mills have been built in the most accessible canyons of the higher

ranges, and sufficient lumber of an inferior kind is made to supply
most of the local demand. The principallumber trees of Nevada are

the white pine (Pinus flexilis), foxtail pine, and Douglas spruce, or
"red pine," as it is called here. Of these the first named is most

generally distributed, being found on all the higher ranges throughout
the State. In botanical characters it is nearly allied to the

Weymouth, or white, pine of the Eastern States, and to the sugar and
mountain pines of the Sierra. In open situations it branches near the

ground and tosses out long down-curving limbs all around, often
gaining in this way a very strikingly picturesque habit. It is seldom

found lower than nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, but
from this height it pushes upward over the roughest ledges to the

extreme limit of tree growth--about eleven thousand feet.
On the Hot Creek, White Pine, and Golden Gate ranges we find a still

hardier and more picturesquespecies, called the foxtail pine, from
its long dense leaf-tassels. About a foot or eighteen inches of the

ends of the branches are densely packed with stiff outstanding
needles, which radiate all around like an electric fox- or squirrel-tail.

The needles are about an inch and a half long, slightly curved,
elastic, and glossily polished, so that the sunshine sifting through

them makes them burn with a fine silveryluster, while their number
and elastictemper tell delightfully in the singing winds.

This tree is pre-eminently picturesque, far surpassing not only its
companion species of the mountains in this respect, but also the most

noted of the lowland oaks and elms. Some stand firmly erect,
feathered with radiant tail tassels down to the ground, forming

slender, tapering towers of shining verdure; others with two or three
specialized branches pushed out at right angles to the trunk and

densely clad with the tasseled sprays, take the form of beautiful
ornamental crosses. Again, in the same woods you find trees that are

made up of several boles united near the ground, and spreading in easy
curves at the sides in a plane parallel to the axis of the mountain,

with the elegant tassels hung in charming order between them the whole
making a perfect harp, ranged across the main wind-lines just where

they may be most effective in the grand storm harmonies. And then
there is an infinitevariety of arching forms, standing free or in

groups, leaning away from or toward each other in curious
architectural structures,--innumerable tassels drooping under the

arches and radiating above them, the outside glowing in the light,
masses of deep shade beneath, giving rise to effects marvelously

beautiful,--while on the roughest ledges of crumbling limestone are
lowly old giants, five or six feet in diameter, that have braved the

storms of more than a thousand years. But, whether old or young,
sheltered or exposed to the wildest gales, this tree is ever found to

be irrepressibly and extravagantly picturesque, offering a richer and
more variedseries of forms to the artist than any other species I

have yet seen.
One of the most interesting mountain excursions I have made in the

State was up through a thick spicy forest of these trees to the top of
the highest summit of the Troy Range, about ninety miles to the south

of Hamilton. The day was full of perfect Indian-summer sunshine, calm
and bracing. Jays and Clarke crows made a pleasant stir in the

foothill pines and junipers; grasshoppers danced in the hazy light,
and rattled on the wing in pure glee, reviving suddenly from the

torpor of a frosty October night to exuberant summer joy. The
squirrels were working industriously among the falling nuts; ripe

willows and aspens made gorgeous masses of color on the russet
hillsides and along the edges of the small streams that threaded the

higher ravines; and on the smooth sloping uplands, beneath the foxtail
pines and firs, the ground was covered with brown grasses, enriched