Even though it is too early to farm, the men are soon busy. New land must be cleared to replace fields that have been farmed too long. The sagebrush and shrubs are pulled up or are dug out of the ground with digging sticks. Small trees are cut with stone axes but the larger trees are burned and in all parts of the Mesa Verde columns of smoke rise as men of the different villages clear the land. Usually this clearing of new land is done in the late winter and early spring when the cool damp weather makes it easier for the men to control the fires. If the burning were done in the summer, forest fires would result and vast areas would be rendered uninhabitable through loss of fire wood and logs for house construction. The fields are owned in common by the village but they are allotted to the clans, which are groups of families related through the female line. The clan in turn allots the fields to its various households, or families. After a generation or two the lands farmed by members of a household seem almost to belong to it but the real control is by the clan. As long as a piece of land is farmed properly it remains with the household but if it is neglected or if the household dies out, the clan heads allot it to other households within the clan. Since the clans are matrilineal, with descent of property in the female line, a man farms land belonging to his wife’s clan. In the early spring no one is busier than the women. Each day they scour the canyons and mesas for early plants that will lend variety to the diet. During the late winter the food became monotonous. Day after day it was cornbread, beans and meat. Principally it was cornbread and although it was prepared in a number of ways it became tiresome. The early spring plants bring a welcome variation to this restricted diet. The green shoots of beeweed and tansy mustard and the first tender leaves of saltbush make delicious greens when boiled with pieces of fat and a dash of salt. Wild onions and juniper berries add an exciting flavor to a pot of deer meat stew. The puff-ball, a spherical, fungus-like growth six or eight inches in diameter, is sought eagerly after each warm spring rain. Toasted slices of puff-ball, eaten with a sauce made of salt and wild onions, are a real spring delicacy. Innumerable plants are edible and by countless generations of experimenting the Indian women have discovered their good qualities. They know exactly how to use each plant and new aromas rise from the cooking pots.