sket
or scooped out in rolls and put into cold water to cool and
warden before being eaten. Sometimes the thick paste is made into
cakes and baked on hot rocks. One of these cakes, when rolled in
paper, will in a short time saturate it with oil. This acorn
food is probably more nutritious than any of the cereals.

INDIAN DOGS.

The Indian dogs, of which every family had several, are as fond
of the acorn food as their owners. These dogs are made useful in
treeing wild-cats, California lions and gray squirrels, and are
very expert in catching ground squirrels by intercepting them
when away from their burrows, and when the Indians drown them out
in the early spring by turning water from the flooded streams
into their holes.

As far as can be learned, dogs were about the only domestic
animals which the Yosemites, and other adjacent tribes of
Indians, kept for use before the country was settled by the white
people.

NUTS AND BERRIES.

Pine nuts were another important article of food, and were much
prized by the Indians. They are very palatable and nutritious,
and are also greatly relished by white people whenever they can
be obtained. The seeds of the Digger or nut pine (_Pinus
Sabiniana_) were the ones most used on the western side of the
Sierras, although the seeds of the sugar pine (_P. Lambertiana_)
were also sometimes eaten. On account of their soft shell, nuts
from the pinon pine (_P. monophylla_), which grows principally on
the eastern side of the mountains, were considered superior to
either of the other kinds, and were an important article of
barter with the tribes of that region. All of these trees are
very prolific, and their crop of nuts in fruitful years has been
estimated to be even greater than the enormous wheat crop of
California, although of course but a very small portion of it is
ever gathered. Many other kinds of nuts and seeds were also
eaten.

The principal berries used by the Indians of Yosemite and tribes
lower down in the foothills were those of the manzanita
(_Arctostaphylos glauca_). They are about the size of
huckleberries, of a light brown color, and when ripe have the
flavor of dried apples. They are used for eating, and also to
make a kind of cider for drinking, and for mixing with some food
preparations. Manzanita is the Spanish for "little apple," and
this shrub, with its rich red bark and pale green foliage, is
perhaps the most beautiful and most widely distributed in
Calif