80 USES OF COMMERCIAL WOODS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



the nuts go to supply human needs. Possibly one bushel in a thou- 

 sand is gathered. It is an important article of food with the nomadic 

 Indians who roam through the region, but can scarcely be said to 

 occupy it. They save all the pine nuts they can while the crop is 

 falling, but the harvest is short. During a month or two the In- 

 dians live in luxury and for the rest of the year they must depend 

 upon something else, though the region produces little other food that 

 the Indians can appropriate. This statement applies more to the 

 region before white men began to develop it than now. Had the 

 nut crop been continuous during the greater part of the year the 

 region would have supported a large Indian population, but it suf- 

 ficed for a few weeks only, and famine followed. The Indians stored 

 the nuts to a limited extent, but they could not, or at least did not, 

 lay by enough for the rest of the year. 



The opening of the nut season brought Indians from neighboring 

 regions to partake of the bounty. A single Indian generally the 

 women did the work would gather 30 or 40 bushels. The harvest 

 time was a perpetual feast. The nuts were roasted or eaten raw. The 

 Indians preferred them roasted because the strong oil in the nuts 

 soon cloys the appetite if eaten raw. The nut gatherers carried on 

 an interesting though not very large commerce with their country- 

 men outside the nut district. In some instances the nuts were car- 

 ried 100 miles to be exchanged for fish or some other product that 

 the native traders could use for barter. 1 



The Indians who gather nuts do not confine their commercial trans- 

 actions to trade with other Indians, but carry on considerable busi- 

 ness with white people. The nuts are sold in thousands of stores 

 between San Francisco and Denver, and North and South. They 

 resemble shelled peanuts in size and appearance and are eaten in 

 the same way. No one knows how many bushels are sold yearly, 

 but in the aggregate the quantity would be surprising if known. 

 The nuts are not bought for human consumption only, but where 

 they are plentiful and cheap are fed to horses, which seem to prefer 

 them to grain. Burro pack trains, carrying supplies for sheep 

 herders and miners in the region, sometimes get little other provender 

 for days together. 



When the mines at Virginia City, Nev., and elsewhere in that dis- 

 trict were booming, long before railroads were within reach, the 

 problem of feeding the thousands of miners was extremely difficult. 

 Ranchmen in California, west of the mountains, were accustomed 



1 An interesting exchange of commodities formerly took place, and possibly has not 

 entirely ceased, between Indian tribes occupying different sides of the Sierras. West of 

 the mountains, in Fresno and Madera Counties, Cal., Indians gathered acorns, and the 

 women, burdening themselves with 2 or 3 bushels each in baskets strapped on their backs, 

 carried them across the Sierras, 125 miles, following almost impossible trails and passing 

 the summit at 12,500 feet. Arriving on the east side, they exchanged the acorns for 

 pine nuts, which they carried home, the journey occupying about 20 days. 



