singular and valuable kind. Several
species found in the mountains of North Mexico, and throughout those
desert regions where hardly any other vegetation exists, have edible
seeds upon which whole tribes of Indians subsist for many months in the
year. The Spanish Americans call them _pinon_ trees, but there are
several species of them in different districts. The Indians parch the
seeds, and sometimes pound them into a coarse meal, from which they bake
a very palatable bread. This bread is often rendered more savoury by
mixing the meal with dried "prairie crickets," a species of coleopterous
insects--that is, insects with a crustaceous or shell-like covering over
their wings--which are common in the desert wilds where these Indians
dwell. Some prairie travellers have pronounced this singular mixture
equal to the "best pound-cake."

The "Lambert pine," so called from the botanist of that name, is found
in Oregon and California, and may be justly considered one of the
wonders of the world. Three hundred feet is not an uncommon height for
this vegetable giant; and its cones have been seen of eighteen inches in
length, hanging like sugar-loaves from its high branches! The wonderful
"palo Colorado" of California is another giant of the pine tribe. It
also grows above three hundred feet high, with a diameter of sixteen
feet! Then there is the "red pine," of eighty feet high, much used for
the decks and masts of ships; the "pitch-pine" (_Pinus rigida_), a
smaller tree, esteemed for its fuel, and furnishing most of the firewood
used in some of the American cities. From this species the strong
burning "knots" are obtained. There is the "white pine" (_Pinus
strobus_), valuable for its timber. This is one of the largest and best
known of the pines. It often attains a height of an hundred and fifty
feet, and a large proportion of those planks so well-known to the
carpenter are sawed from its trunk. In the State of New York alone no
less than 700,000,000 feet of timber are annually obtained from trees of
this species, which, by calculation, must exhaust every year the
enormous amount of 70,000 acres of forest! Of course, at this rate the
pine-forests of New York State must soon be entirely destroyed.

In addition, there is the "yellow pine," a tree of sixty feet high, much
used in flooring houses; and the beautiful "balsam fir," used as an
ornamental evergreen both in Europe and America, and from which is
obtained the