sily overestimated. It
furnishes charcoal and timber for the mines, and, with the juniper,
supplies the ranches with fuel and rough fencing. In fruitful seasons
the nut crop is perhaps greater than the California wheat crop, which
exerts so much influence throughout the food markets of the world. When,
the crop is ripe, the Indians make ready the long beating-poles; bags,
baskets, mats, and sacks are collected; the women out at service among
the settlers, washing or drudging, assemble at the family huts; the men
leave their ranch work; old and young, all are mounted on ponies and
start in great glee to the nut-lands, forming curiously picturesque
cavalcades; flaming scarfs and calico skirts stream loosely over the
knotty ponies, two squaws usually astride of each, with baby midgets
bandaged in baskets slung on their backs or balanced on the saddle-bow;
while nut-baskets and water-jars project from each side, and the long
beating-poles make angles in every direction. Arriving at some
well-known central point where grass and water are found, the squaws
with baskets, the men with poles ascend the ridges to the laden trees,
followed by the children. Then the beating begins right merrily, the
burs fly in every direction, rolling down the slopes, lodging here and
there against rocks and sage-bushes, chased and gathered by the women
and children with fine natural gladness. Smoke-columns speedily mark the
joyful scene of their labors as the roasting-fires are kindled, and, at
night, assembled in gay circles garrulous as jays, they begin the first
nut feast of the season.

The nuts are about half an inch long and a quarter of an inch in
diameter, pointed at the top, round at the base, light brown in general
color, and, like many other pine seeds, handsomely dotted with purple,
like birds' eggs. The shells are thin and may be crushed between the
thumb and finger. The kernels are white, becoming brown by roasting, and
are sweet to every palate, being eaten by birds, squirrels, dogs,
horses, and men. Perhaps less than one bushel in a thousand of the whole
crop is ever gathered. Still, besides supplying their own wants, in
times of plenty the Indians bring large quantities to market; then they
are eaten around nearly every fireside in the State, and are even fed to
horses occasionally instead of barley.

Of other trees growing on the Sierra, but forming a very small part of
the general forest, we may briefly notice the following: