When
The Crop Is Ripe The Indians Make Ready Their Long Beating-Poles;
Baskets, Bags, Rags, Mats, Are Gotten Together.
The squaws out among
the settlers at service, washing and drudging, assemble at the family
huts; the men leave their ranch work; all, old and young, are mounted
on ponies, and set off in great glee to the nut lands, forming
cavalcades curiously picturesque.
Flaming scarfs and calico skirts
stream loosely over the knotty ponies, usually two squaws astride of
each, with the small baby midgets bandaged in baskets slung on their
backs, or balanced upon the saddle-bow, while the nut baskets and
water jars project from either side, and the long beating-poles, like
old-fashioned lances, angle out in every direction.
Arrived at some central point already fixed upon, where water and
grass is found, the squaws with baskets, the men with poles, ascend
the ridges to the laden trees, followed by the children; beating
begins with loud noise and chatter; the burs fly right and left,
lodging against stones and sagebrush; the squaws and children gather
them 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 circles, garrulous as jays, the first grand nut
feast begins. Sufficient quantities are thus obtained in a few weeks
to last all winter.
The Indians also gather several species of berries and dry them to
vary their stores, and a few deer and grouse are killed on the
mountains, besides immense numbers of rabbits and hares; but the pine-nuts are their main dependence - their staff of life, their bread.
Insects also, scarce noticed by man, come in for their share of this
fine bounty. Eggs are deposited, and the baby grubs, happy fellows,
find themselves in a sweet world of plenty, feeding their way through
the heart of the cone from one nut chamber to another, secure from
rain and wind and heat, until their wings are grown and they are ready
to launch out into the free ocean of air and light.
XIV
Nevada's Timber Belt[19]
The pine woods on the tops of the Nevada mountains are already shining
and blooming in winter snow, making a most blessedly refreshing
appearance to the weary traveler down on the gray plains. During the
fiery days of summer the whole of this vast region seems so perfectly
possessed by the sun that the very memories of pine trees and snow are
in danger of being burned away, leaving one but little more than dust
and metal. But since these first winter blessings have come, the
wealth and beauty of the landscapes have come fairly into view, and
one is rendered capable of looking and seeing.
The grand nut harvest is over, as far as the Indians are concerned,
though perhaps less than one bushel in a thousand of the whole crop
has been gathered. But the squirrels and birds are still busily
engaged, and by the time that Nature's ends are accomplished, every
nut will doubtless have been put to use.
All of the nine Nevada conifers mentioned in my last letter are also
found in California, excepting only the Rocky Mountain spruce, which I
have not observed westward of the Snake Range. So greatly, however,
have they been made to vary by differences of soil and climate, that
most of them appear as distinct species. Without seeming in any way
dwarfed or repressed in habit, they nowhere develop to anything like
California dimensions. A height of fifty feet and diameter of twelve
or fourteen inches would probably be found to be above the average
size of those cut for lumber. On the margin of the Carson and
Humboldt Sink the larger sage bushes are called "heavy timber"; and to
the settlers here any tree seems large enough for saw-logs.
Mills have been built in the most accessible canyons of the higher
ranges, and sufficient lumber of an inferior kind is made to supply
most of the local demand. The principal lumber trees of Nevada are
the white pine (Pinus flexilis), foxtail pine, and Douglas spruce, or
"red pine," as it is called here. Of these the first named is most
generally distributed, being found on all the higher ranges throughout
the State. In botanical characters it is nearly allied to the
Weymouth, or white, pine of the Eastern States, and to the sugar and
mountain pines of the Sierra. In open situations it branches near the
ground and tosses out long down-curving limbs all around, often
gaining in this way a very strikingly picturesque habit. It is seldom
found lower than nine thousand feet above the level of the sea, but
from this height it pushes upward over the roughest ledges to the
extreme limit of tree growth - about eleven thousand feet.
On the Hot Creek, White Pine, and Golden Gate ranges we find a still
hardier and more picturesque species, called the foxtail pine, from
its long dense leaf-tassels. About a foot or eighteen inches of the
ends of the branches are densely packed with stiff outstanding
needles, which radiate all around like an electric fox- or squirrel-tail. The needles are about an inch and a half long, slightly curved,
elastic, and glossily polished, so that the sunshine sifting through
them makes them burn with a fine silvery luster, while their number
and elastic temper tell delightfully in the singing winds.
This tree is pre-eminently picturesque, far surpassing not only its
companion species of the mountains in this respect, but also the most
noted of the lowland oaks and elms. Some stand firmly erect,
feathered with radiant tail tassels down to the ground, forming
slender, tapering towers of shining verdure; others with two or three
specialized branches pushed out at right angles to the trunk and
densely clad with the tasseled sprays, take the form of beautiful
ornamental crosses. Again, in the same woods you find trees that are
made up of several boles united near the ground, and spreading in easy
curves at the sides in a plane parallel to the axis of the mountain,
with the elegant tassels hung in charming order between them the whole
making a perfect harp, ranged across the main wind-lines just where
they may be most effective in the grand storm harmonies.
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