IN CALIFORNIA 123 



made the bulbs as good to eat as potatoes great act, 

 wasn't it, like a sleight-of-hand trick. Ladies and 

 gentlemen, here's a cake of soap or a potato, as 

 you please! Which shall it be? Then they knew 

 another queer thing about it that you can catch 

 fish with it. They would dam up the streams, and 

 throw mashed amole in the water. That stupefied 

 the fish, it seems, so they floated up to the top of the 

 water, where Mr. Indian gathered them in. That 

 wasn't sport but it got results, and I guess the fish 

 liked it better than being hooked. Of course our 

 law doesn't allow that sort of pot-hunting now." 



"Yes, sir," my Calif ornian continued, as he 

 climbed back into the wagon and started up the 

 broncos, "there's no excuse for going grimy in this 

 State, where soap grows on bushes. Why there's 

 even a kind of pigweed there's some there" 8 

 pointing with his whip to the roadside ' ' that yields 

 soap. It has a root like a carrot in shape; you 

 pound it up on a stone, and with a little water, 

 you've got your soap. Then there's chili-cojote, 

 that creeping bad-smelling vine we passed just now, 

 that bears yellow gourds on it that look like oranges 

 scattered over the ground mock orange some folks 

 call it ; you can mash its roots and use it for soap ; 

 but a better root is from the Spanish bayonets 



s Chenopodium Californicum. 



