When prospectors, hunters, ranch hands,
etc., touch their "bottom dollar" and find themselves out of employment,
they say, "Well, I can at least go to the Sugar Pines and make
shingles." A few posts are set in the ground, and a single length cut
from the first tree felled produces boards enough for the walls and roof
of a cabin; all the rest the lumberman makes is for sale, and he is
speedily independent. No gardener or haymaker is more sweetly perfumed
than these rough mountaineers while engaged in this business, but the
havoc they make is most deplorable.
[Illustration: SUGAR PINE ON EXPOSED RIDGE.]
The sugar, from which the common name is derived, is to my taste the
best of sweets--better than maple sugar. It exudes from the heart-wood,
where wounds have been made, either by forest fires, or the ax, in the
shape of irregular, crisp, candy-like kernels, which are crowded
together in masses of considerable size, like clusters of resin-beads.
When fresh, it is perfectly white and delicious, but, because most of
the wounds on which it is found have been made by fire, the exuding sap
is stained on the charred surface, and the hardened sugar becomes brown.
Pages:
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187