During the period when the hair or wig was worn "powdered" or whitened, houses had a special room set apart for the process, known as the powdering-room or closet.
The absence of the ordinary bright green colours of vegetation is another peculiarity of this flora, almost all the plants having glaucous or whitened stems. Foliage is reduced to a minimum, the moisture of the plant being stored up in massive or fleshy stems against the long-continued drought.
If whitened, the loss in bulk and in rejection being two-thirds, this would produce about 44 bolts, which at £30 per load of 80 bolts, the appreciated market value of 1907, would be worth £16, ios.
The Inyo range, on the east, is quite bare of timber, and its summits are only occasionally whitened with snow for a few days during the winter, as almost all precipitation is cut off by the higher ranges to the westward.
As the season advances and the flowers yield nectar more freely, visible signs of combbuilding will be observed in the whitened edges of empty cells in the brood-chambers; the thoughtful workers are lengthening out the cells for honey-storing, and the bee-master takes the hint by giving room in advance, thus lessening the chance of undesired swarms. In other words, order and method, combined with the habit of taking time by the forelock, are absolutely necessary to the bee-keeper, seeing that the enormous army of workers under his control is multiplying daily by scores of thousands.
