412 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
ative, but as the season advances it becomes strong in turpentine. 
When the cakes are old they have a bitter taste not unlike that of pine 
chips. 
Sugar maple, (Acer saccharinum.)—In the spring the Indian families 
throughout the Northern States repair to their respective sugar camps. 
The sap collected from the trees is carried in bark buckets and boiled 
down in the usual way. Sugar-making forms a sort of Indian carnival, 
and boiling candy and pouring it out on the snow to cool is the pastime 
of the children. The women make the sugar, which is put up for sale 
in boxes made of white birch bark and called mocoecks. The boxes 
designed for sale are of all sizes, weighing from twenty pounds to 
seventy, and are generally exchanged for merchandise. Winnebagoes 
and Chippewas are the largest manufacturers, the former often selling 
to the Northwest Fur Company fifteen thousand pounds a year. 
Soap berry, (Sapindus marginatus.) So ealled from yielding a soapy 
substance when soaked in water. It produces its berries in large clus- 
ters the size of cherries, containing a clear, creamy, yellow, glue-like 
substance surrounding large, hard, black seeds. The Alaska Indians 
pound these berries and press the pulpy mass into round cakes weighing 
two or three pounds. These look like anything but bread, being a black, 
forbidding mass, with the shining black seeds, but partially broken, 
studding the outside. The taste of this is much worse than that of the 
meanest tobacco, having a smoky flavor added. The latter is acquired 
by the suspension of the cake over the fires in the tents to dry, which also 
gives it a black color. It is the most repulsive of all Indian articles of food. 
The white albumen in the interior of the seeds contains the nutritive 
substance. An analysis of the soap-berry bread gives the following 
result: Water, 18.16; proteine compound, 14.44; starch, 12.10; sugar, 
14.71; cellulose, gum, oil, &c., (by difference,) 36.98; ash, 3.61 =100. 
Screw bean, (Strombocarpus pubescens, Plate 4.)—A translation of 
the Spanish word tornillo, being twisted like a screw. It does not ripen 
until late in the fail, nor is it fit to use until ripe and quite dry, being 
insipid; but no sooner is it ripe and divested of moisture than it 
becomes excessively sweet and very palatable, and is considered a superb 
article of diet by the Indians along the Colorado River of Arizona, and 
by the Utahs, who collect with assiduity all they can and store for 
winter use. It wiil keep a long time, but is subject to the attacks of a 
species of Bruchus, a small insect which is buried in the fruit, and con- 
sequently, when pulverized and made into bread, is eaten with the rest. 
if the beans are left in the storehouse unpounded, the insects will 
escape, but, as sometimes happens, when it is wished to reduce the sup- 
ply of beans to a smaller compass, they are somewhat coarsely pounded 
up. The seeds, however, being hard, are generally kept whole. This 
coarse meal undergoes a peculiar change, like fermentation, and after 
being put under pressure for a short time acquires the taste desired by 
the Indians. When bread is to be made from the beans or the pulver- 
ized meal, the whole mass, as in the case of mesquite, is finely ground 
in a mortar, mixed with water, kneaded hard, and baked in the sun. It 
is then fit to use and will keep some time; is sweet and more nutritious 
than the mesquite bread. The flour makes an excellent gruel, or if 
mixed with water is not to be refused as a beverage by either red or 
white man. By boiling the coarse meai in water a good molasses is 
obtained, and a pleasant and stimulating wine may be made from this 
fruit. All kinds of animals are fond of it and fatten uponit. It might 
iorm an excellent hedge plant for many parts of the United States. 
Giant arbor-vite, (Tha gigantea.\—The Indians scattered along the 
