220 THE MOUNTAINS OF CALIFOKNIA 



apple-tree, and seldom pushes a single shoot higher 

 than fifteen or twenty feet above the ground. 



The average thickness of the trunk is, perhaps, 

 about ten or twelve inches. The leaves are mostly 

 undivided, like round awls, instead of being sepa 

 rated, like those of other pines, into twos and threes 

 and fives. The cones are green while growing, and 

 are usually found over all the tree, forming quite a 

 marked feature as seen against the bluish-gray foli 

 age. They are quite small, only about two inches 

 in length, and give no promise of edible nuts; but 

 when we come to open them, we find that about 

 half the entire bulk of the cone is made up of sweet, 

 nutritious seeds, the kernels of which are nearly as 

 large as those of hazel-nuts. 



This is undoubtedly the most important food- 

 tree on the Sierra, and furnishes the Mono, Carson, 

 and Walker River Indians with more and better 

 nuts than all the other species taken together. It 

 is the Indians' own tree, and many a white man 

 have they killed for cutting it down. 



In its development Nature seems to have aimed 

 at the formation of as great a fruit-bearing surface 

 as possible. Being so low and accessible, the cones 

 are readily beaten off with poles, and the nuts pro 

 cured by roasting them until the scales open. In 

 bountiful seasons a single Indian will gather thirty 

 or forty bushels of them a fine squirrelish em 

 ployment. 



Of all the conifers along the eastern base of the 

 Sierra, and on all the many mountain groups and 

 short ranges of the Great Basin, this foodful little 

 pine is the commonest tree, and the most impor- 



