158 THE CEDAR TRADE OF ASIATIC RUSSIA 



the cones are still green. The heat fprces open the 

 cone scales, and the seed is then picked out. This is 

 the common procedure adopted, and when marching 

 through these forests in the autumn, heaps and mounds 

 of empty cones collected in the centre of some small 

 glade are often met with. 



At the request of the Political Officer, a note was pre- 

 pared laying down some simple rules for the improved 

 collection of the cone harvest in the interests of the 

 preservation of the trees themselves. We had a 

 solemn jirgah in the forest one day. The heads of the 

 local villages and so forth attended and received the 

 explanations of the proposed future procedure with 

 no great enthusiasm, but with promises to see that it 

 was carried out. They are childishly difficult, not to 

 say dangerously difficult, people to deal with in these 

 parts, and as they burnt down the Political Officer's 

 summer head-quarters rest-house, situated in these 

 forests, the following year, it is to be feared that the 

 rules for the collection of chilgoza cones have not yet 

 been introduced very effectively. 



To return to the cembran pine of Asiatic Russia. 

 The yearly collection of seed is said to amount to 

 several tens of thousands of poods (i pood equals 

 •32 cwt.), the average wage of each workman being 

 froin six to nineteen roubles a season; or when the 

 work is undertaken by the Labourers' Association 

 (artel) each member of the Association who takes 

 up the work makes from thirty to forty roubles during 

 the season. 



As a popular dainty the cetnbran pine seed is much 

 appreciated both throughout Siberia, and European 



