126 WITH THE FLOWERS AND TREES 



for everybody, and a living was to be had for the 

 picking from the shrubs and trees and wild grasses. 

 To this abundance of natural foods, perhaps, is due 

 the fact that the Indians of the Pacific Coast, unlike 

 their brethren to the east of the Sierra Nevada, 

 knew nothing of agriculture. There was no need of 

 planting and tending crops of maize and beans 

 when limitless groves of oaks and nut-pines dropped 

 their nutritious fruits into the open hand. Acorns 

 and pine-nuts were, indeed, the California Indian's 

 staff of life, and still are in many rancherias of the 

 more remote mountain districts. The pine-nuts, or 

 pinons, to use the common name by which they are 

 called in the Southwest, are the seeds of several 

 species of pine particularly, in California, Pinus 

 monophylla and P. Sabiniana. The former tree is 

 commonest on the desert slopes of the Sierra Ne- 

 vada, and occurs southward to the Mexican line ; the 

 latter species is most abundant in Central Cali- 

 fornia from the coast to the western slope of the 

 Sierra. Pinus Sabiniana, indeed, because of the ex- 

 tensive use of its seeds by the Indians, has acquired 

 the popular name of "Digger" pine. The gather- 

 ing of the seeds makes a festival for those Indians 

 who still consume them, and readers of John Muir's 

 "Mountains of California" will recall his pictur- 

 esque description of such a junket. The method 



