t exigency of climate or soil, it remains near
the ground, throwing out crooked, divergent branches like an orchard
apple-tree, and seldom pushes a single shoot higher than fifteen or
twenty feet above the ground.

The average thickness of the trunk is, perhaps, about ten or twelve
inches. The leaves are mostly undivided, like round awls, instead of
being separated, like those of other pines, into twos and threes and
fives. The cones are green while growing, and are usually found over all
the tree, forming quite a marked feature as seen against the bluish-gray
foliage. They are quite small, only about two inches in length, and give
no promise of edible nuts; but when we come to open them, we find that
about half the entire bulk of the cone is made up of sweet, nutritious
seeds, the kernels of which are nearly as large as those of hazel-nuts.

This is undoubtedly the most important food-tree on the Sierra, and
furnishes the Mono, Carson, and Walker River Indians with more and
better nuts than all the other species taken together. It is the
Indians' own tree, and many a white man have they killed for cutting it
down.

In its development Nature seems to have aimed at the formation of as
great a fruit-bearing surface as possible. Being so low and accessible,
the cones are readily beaten off with poles, and the nuts procured by
roasting them until the scales open. In bountiful seasons a single
Indian will gather thirty or forty bushels of them--a fine squirrelish
employment.

Of all the conifers along the eastern base of the Sierra, and on all the
many mountain groups and short ranges of the Great Basin, this foodful
little pine is the commonest tree, and the most important. Nearly every
mountain is planted with it to a height of from 8000 to 9000 feet above
the sea. Some are covered from base to summit by this one species, with
only a sparse growth of juniper on the lower slopes to break the
continuity of its curious woods, which, though dark-looking at a
distance, are almost shadeless, and have none of the damp, leafy glens
and hollows so characteristic of other pine woods. Tens of thousands of
acres occur in continuous belts. Indeed, viewed comprehensively the
entire Basin seems to be pretty evenly divided into level plains dotted
with sage-bushes and mountain-chains covered with Nut Pines. No slope is
too rough, none too dry, for these bountiful orchards of the red man.

The value of this species to Nevada is not ea