The relatively superior economic situation of the Fort Berthold Indians is doubtless due to the ancient agrarian background of the tribe. Long centuries of farming fitted them for ready adjustment to the agricultural life of the reservation. A general view of the farming section of their area presents an aspect not greatly unlike that of any other farming section in a similar territory. While many of them live in log houses of two to four rooms, others live in better buildings than those of the average rural district. Homes on the other reservations vary from primitive shacks and log cabins to modern dwellings, and are usually clustered about agencies or subagencies. In summertime many of the Indians, showing a longing for the old tipi life, live in tents placed in their yards, and cook over open fires. Wikiups, improvised shelters of willows, are also used in fair weather. Although the primitive food-gathering methods of hunting and fishing have no great economic value at the present time, the Indians still make use of their traditional knowledge of certain native foods and simple ways of preserving them. They dry much of their food, especially meat and vegetables. Among the Fort Berthold Indians one may still be offered pemmican, corn balls, butter from marrow, sausage, and tripe. Mint and balm leaves for tea, chokecherries, berries, red bean and tipsin roots, and wild onions, artichokes, and plums are still added to the larder. Rattlesnake oil, skunk oil, sweet grass, cedar tree needles, and wild sage are used as medicines. In addition the Sioux at Standing Rock make _wakmiza wasna_ by pounding corn meal and raisins into beef tallow, and forming the whole into small cakes. _Wojapi_ is made of chokecherries, June berries, and flour, and some women add a little sugar to make a kind of pudding. Wild beans are taken from caches where they have been stored by mice, the supplies thus removed always being replaced with corn. _Kinnikinik_ or _killiklik_, a mixture used for smoking, is made of dried and shredded red willow bark, sprinkled with tobacco. Some basketry is still made, and most of the Indian groups do tanning and very good beadwork. Porcupine quills, horse hair, and feathers are employed in the designs in embroidery, and elk teeth, shells, colored clays, and weasel tails are used for adornments. Objects of Indian art are on display and for sale at the annual fairs on the reservations, and usually can be purchased at the agencies or subagencies. Complicating the struggle for existence for most of the tribes is the prevalence of tuberculosis, of which one-third of the people at Standing Rock are said to be victims. Trachoma also is common. In spite of these facts, however, the tribes are gaining rapidly in numbers, with an average birth rate more than twice as high as the death rate.