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.