36 Forest Club Annual 



deuce of the death of squirrels from starvation. In not one known 

 instance has a dead squirrel, or even an old skeleton of a squirrel, 

 been reported. Furthermore, the reports show that many times 

 the quantity of cones collected by the Forest Service during an\ 

 one fall was found in the hoards in the early spring untouched 

 and uneaten by the squirrels, even after a very long, severe win- 

 ter. On the other hand, seldom in the Northern Colorado for- 

 ests, where three coniferous species occur, is there a failure of a 

 cone crop of all species ; and since the Forest Service on the 

 Arapaho collects only from lodepole pine, which forms 80 per 

 cent of the forested area, the squirrel would resort to spruce and 

 fir seeds for food in the event of a pine crop failure. Careful ob- 

 servations indicate that the squirrels in this locality never hoard 

 more than 25 per cent of the available cone crop and never eat 

 more than 75 per cent of that hoarded. The Forest Service in 

 the past banner year collected less than 25 per cent of the hoarded 

 crop. It will be seen, then, that the squirrel is never in want of 

 food even in the shape of his own hoarded cones, and usually has 

 each spring a "left-over" hoarded supply. As lodgepole cones 

 persist on the tree a number of years after maturity, an additional 

 supply in this form is always available. 



DKTAILS OF COLLECTION. 



After the squirrels have started hoarding, the collectors 

 search the woods in the vicinity of their homes or at those points 

 where they have previously noticed cone cutting by the squirrels. 

 They generally carry small buckets into which they place the 

 cones taken from squirrel hoards. When full, they are emptied 

 into jute sacks of about two bushel capacity furnished by the 

 Forest Service. Some use. their open hands in removing the 

 cones from the hoards while others use small home-made scoup- 

 like devices. One favorite utensil is a small shovel made like 

 a potato scoup, while in one instance the oval-shaped old fashion- 

 ed wire egg beater was used. The field sacks are left in the woods 

 for delivery to the railroad or Seed Extraction Plant. On in- 

 structions of the Supervisor to collectors, the receiving of cones 

 was stopped this year on November 14. The length of the usual 

 collecting season in other years, however, was less than two 

 months. 



The "cone-pickers" were ranchmen, women, girls, boys, tour- 

 ists and unemployed persons, some of whom migrated to Middle 

 Park for the sole purpose of collecting cones. The statistics of 



