The value of this species to Nevada is not easily overestimated.  It furnishes fuel, charcoal, and timber for the mines, and, together with the enduring juniper, so generally associated with it, supplies the ranches with abundance of firewood and rough fencing.  Many a square mile has already been denuded in supplying these demands, but, so great is the area covered by it, no appreciable loss has as yet been sustained.  It is pretty generally known that this tree yields edible nuts, but their importance and excellence as human food is infinitely greater than is supposed.  In fruitful seasons like this one, the pine nut crop of Nevada is, perhaps, greater than the entire wheat crop of California, concerning which so much is said and felt throughout the food markets of the world.

The Indians alone appreciate this portion of Nature’s bounty and celebrate the harvest home with dancing and feasting.  The cones, which are a bright grass-green in color and about two inches long by one and a half in diameter, are beaten off with poles just before the scales open, gathered in heaps of several bushels, and lightly scorched by burning a thin covering of brushwood over them.  The resin, with which the cones are bedraggled, is thus burned off, the nuts slightly roasted, and the scales made to open.  Then they are allowed to dry in the sun, after which the nuts are easily thrashed out and are ready to be stored away.  They are about half an inch long by a quarter of an inch in diameter, pointed at the upper end, rounded at the base, light brown in general color, and handsomely dotted with purple, like birds’ eggs.  The shells are thin, and may be crushed between the thumb and finger.  The kernels are white and waxy-looking, becoming brown by roasting, sweet and delicious to every palate, and are eaten by birds, squirrels, dogs, horses, and man.  When the crop is abundant the Indians bring in large quantities for sale; they are eaten around every fireside in the State, and oftentimes fed to horses instead of barley.

Looking over the whole continent, none of Nature’s bounties seems to me so great as this in the way of food, none so little appreciated.  Fortunately for the Indians and wild animals that gather around Nature’s board, this crop is not easily harvested in a monopolizing way.  If it could be gathered like wheat the whole would be carried away and dissipated in towns, leaving the brave inhabitants of these wilds to starve.

Long before the harvest time, which is in September and October, the Indians examine the trees with keen discernment, and inasmuch as the cones require two years to mature from the first appearance of the little red rosettes of the fertile flowers, the scarcity or abundance of the crop may be predicted more than a year in advance.  Squirrels, and worms, and Clarke crows, make haste to begin the harvest.  When the crop is ripe the Indians make ready their long beating-poles; baskets, bags, rags, mats, are gotten