156 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFORNIA 



is made by the immense cylindrical cones that de 

 pend loosely from the ends of the main branches ! 

 No one knows what Nature can do in the way of 

 pine-burs until he has seen those of the Sugar 

 Pine. They are commonly from fifteen to eighteen 

 inches long, and three in diameter; green, shaded 

 with dark purple on their sunward sides. They are 

 ripe in September and October. Then the flat 

 scales open and the seeds take wing, but the empty 

 cones become still more beautiful and effective, for 

 their diameter is nearly doubled by the spreading 

 of the scales, and their color changes to a warm 

 yellowish-brown; while they remain swinging on 

 the tree all the following winter and summer, and 

 continue effectively beautiful even on the ground 

 many years after they fall. The wood is deliciously 

 fragrant, and fine in grain and texture ; it is of a rich 

 cream-yellow, as if formed of condensed sunbeamSo 

 Eetinospora obtusa, Sieboldj the glory of Eastern 

 forests, is called " Fu-si-no-ki " (tree of the sun) by 

 the Japanese ; the Sugar Pine is the sun-tree of the 

 Sierra. Unfortunately it is greatly prized by the 

 lumbermen, and in accessible places is always 

 the first tree in the woods to feel their steel. But the 

 regular lumbermen, with their saw-mills, have been 

 less generally destructive thus far than the shingle- 

 makers. The wood splits freely, and there is a con 

 stant demand for the shingles. And because an ax, 

 and saw, and frow are all the capital required for 

 the business, many of that drifting, unsteady class 

 of men so large in California engage in it for a few 

 months in the year. When prospectors, hunters, 

 ranch hands, etc., touch their " bottom dollar " and 



