shelter, but the long dry season burns up the herbage so thoroughly that the best stock-growers find it necessary to sow the Alfalfa and other forage grasses largely to feed their stock in the dryest months. There are still many large ranches, but the proprietors are usually wide-awake Americans, and they do not confine themselves to raising stock. Extensive wheat-fields, vineyards or olive-groves, or the rearing of great numbers of horses or mules, or large flocks of sheep, also occupy their attention and prevent their exclusive interest in either pursuit. The herdsmen or cow-boys-vaqueros is the more sonorous Spanish name, and is most used in California-are often Mexicans, but quite as often French, German, Swiss, Swedes, or Irishmen. The lasso is used as in Texas in rounding up the herds, and the other features of the business do not differ materially from those already described, except that greater care is taken in improving the breeds by the introduction of the best imported cattle.

Dairy farming is rapidly increasing in California. The butter is generally good, and some of it of the "gilt-edged" quality. It brings a high price, ranging generally from 40 to 60 cents a pound, or, which is substantially the same thing, from 60 cents to $1.10 a roll, the roll, though nominally two pounds, always coming' considerably short of that weight. The milk is of excellent quality, though there are comparatively few Alderneys or Jersey cows in the State. Cheese is not very largely produced, reliance for this product being had upon the Eastern cheese factories.

The rearing of horses and mules is not a large branch of the stock-raising industry west of the Mississippi river, except in California, Texas, and Arkansas, though it is increasing in Kansas, Colorado, and perhaps New Mexico. In Texas the greater part of the horses raised on the ranches are either mustangs (the descendants of the Spanish horses introduced into Mexico three centuries ago), very tough and serviceable, but vicious and tricky, or a cross between these and our larger American horse, somewhat larger than the mustang and less tricky, but not quite so tough. These are usually called bronchos. The Indian ponies belong to this cross. Horses of better

RAISING HORSES AND MULES-CAMELS.

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breeds are raised on smaller farms and brought into these States from States east of the Mississippi, but never in large droves. In California the Norman and Percheron horses are now being introduced in large numbers for draught horses. The rearing of horses and mules is said to be very profitable, and some of the large stock-ranches in Kansas and Colorado are turning their attention to it. The rapid extension of railroads in these new States and Territories creates a vastly increased demand for good horses for purposes of draught, for carriage use, and for the saddle. Every station has at least a dozen settlements tributary to it, all of which require teams to make the connection. The raising of mules is still more profitable, since the mule is more surefooted, hardier, and will live on poorer fare than the horse. He is more vicious and stubborngranted, but that is partly due to the abuse to which he is subjected. Mules bring on the average a price considerably higher than horses. In the mining districts, and especially in the new mining regions, mules are in great demand as pack-animals, and for drawing the immense freight-wagons, and command high prices for these purposes. The great stage company, Barlow, Sanderson & Co., whose lines run daily or oftener to all parts of Western Colorado and Northern New Mexico, where there are practicable roads, keep hundreds of horses and a still larger number of mules in their stables.

An attempt has been made to introduce the camel into Texas, and it has met with a moderate degree of success. The animal would seem to be well adapted to a part of Texas, Arizona, Southern New Mexico, and Southern California, and if the Bactrian species could be introduced it might do well farther north; but the camel is better suited to the indolent oriental than to our wide-awake, restless, impatient Yankees.

CHAPTER XVI.

SHEEP-FARMING AND WOOL-Growing-NUMBER OF SHEEP AND ANNUAL INCREASE OF LAMBS IN EACH STATE OR TERRITORY-THE GREAT WOOL STATES-IMPROVING THE BREED-MERINOS-COTSWOLDS-SOUTHDOWNS - LEICESTERS TASTES DIFFER-Perils of the Flocks from Cold, STARVATION, AND THIRST -WINTER SHELTER AND WINTER FOOD NECESSARY IN KANSAS AND FURTHER NORTH-DISEASES of SheeP-THE SHEEP THAT BROWSE AND THE SHEEP THAT CROP THEIR FOOD-SHRUBS AND PLANTS POISONOUS TO SHEEP-SHEEP-FARMING THE SHEPHERDS-THE SHEEP-FARMER IN COLORADO-THE PURCHASE OF THE SHEEP-FARM-BUYING THE SHEEP-THE ACCOUNT-BEGINNING ON A SMALL SCALE: THE MAN WITH ONLY $1,000-CROSSING the Breed wITH THE BIG-HORN-THE ANGORA AND OTHER GOATS-THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN GOAT. THERE are none of the States or Territories of the Great West which are not engaged to a greater or less extent in the rearing of sheep, either for their wool or their flesh, or both; but the extent of the business, and the size of the flocks, differ very greatly in different sections. The latest statistics give the number of sheep in this Western Empire as approximately 20,810,000, somewhat more than one-half of all in the United States, and the numbers are increasing, at a ratio which will soon enable them to rival Australia in the supply of mutton and wool to the world.

California leads the whole country in numbers and perhaps in quality; her flocks numbering about 7,300,000, and averaging ninety lambs each year to every one hundred ewes. Texas follows with about 4,560,000, of an average quality somewhat below those of California, but improving. Her sheep-growers claim about eighty lambs annually to one hundred ewes. Colorado is next with 2,000,000 sheep, mostly of good quality, and modestly estimates her net increase at seventy-five lambs for one hundred ewes. Next follow in their order Missouri, Oregon, and New Mexico, with 1,450,000, 1,250,000, and 1,000,000 respectively. Those of New Mexico are largely of the old Mexican breed, and the Navajo Indians have flocks exceeding 500,000. Utah and Iowa are the only other States or Territories whose flocks approximate half a million.

BREEDS-MERINO PReferred.

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The original stock on which all, or nearly all these flocks were started, were Mexican ewes, from the original Spanish Merinos brought over here, by the early Spanish settlers, in the sixteenth century, and largely raised on the Missions, which were so numerous in Mexico. They were, in the beginning, good stock for that time; but in three centuries of neglect, they had degenerated till they were a puny race, gaunt and small, and yielded only from three to four pounds of coarse felting wool annually. The California and Texas shepherds readily saw that there would be no profit, either in the wool or mutton of such sheep as these, and though a selection from these were the best ewes they could obtain, they procured, often at very high prices, the best imported or Eastern Merino, Cotswold or Leicester bucks, and began at once to improve the breed. Some of the experiments proved failures. It was found that the cross with the Leicester or Southdown was not desirable, at least until, by cross breeding, the size of the ewes had been materially increased. Moreover, it was more profitable to raise sheep for wool than for mutton, and while it was desirable to have an eye to increase of size, and to improvement of the flesh in the future, the most desirable improvement for the present was the increase of size, and of wool production, by breeding with the largest and best full Merino bucks; thereby producing in two or three crosses, a much larger and better fleeced sheep. The Merino wool is the best of the felting wools, and by careful breeding, the sheep can in five or six years be brought to yield from ten to twelve pounds per year, and eventually the bucks and wethers reach from seventeen to twenty-five pounds of washed wool.

The crosses with the Cotswolds bring a better sheep for mutton, and a fleece of perhaps equal weight, but it is of a different character-a medium long and fine combing wool, adapted to the manufacture of all kinds of worsted or hardtwisted goods, but not suitable for broadcloths, merinos, cashmeres or any description of the softer woollens.

Probably nine-tenths of these vast flocks, or nearly nineteen millions, approximate more or less closely to the Merino standard; while over the line in the Dominion of Canada, where the sheep

1

is raised quite as much for the flesh as for the fleece, the Cotswolds, Leicesters and Southdowns are greatly in excess of the Merinos.

Even in Texas, those sheep-masters are wisest, who provide some shelter, if not fodder for their flocks, in the severe storms which occasionally visit the hill slopes, which form the best pasturage for sheep. In Southern California, this is never done, but the greatest suffering to which the flocks are subjected comes from the failure of the pasturage, in the long and dry summer, and the failure also of water. In some years in that State, entire flocks have been almost annihilated by starvation and thirst, and when at last in desperation, the shepherds attempted to drive them to the fresher and moister pastures of the mountains, every foot of the way was strewn with the festering carcasses of the poor animals. By sad experience the sheep-masters of California have learned two things: first, that in the dry season at least, the pastures on the slopes and foot-hills of the mountains are much better for sheep, than those on the plains, or generally in the valleys and second, that it is a wise measure of economy to sow Alfalfa, millet, Hungarian grass, or something of the sort, to feed to their sheep in seasons when the pasturage is⚫ scanty.

In Kansas, Colorado, and all the States and Territories farther north, both shelter and hay or grain are necessary, though not always furnished, In New Mexico and Arizona, the general practice is to furnish neither, though sometimes the flocks suffer in consequence. The greater part of the flocks in these two Territories is the Mexican sheep, which is hardier, though far less valuable, than the improved breeds of the other States and Territories.

Sheep suffer in some sections from a variety of diseases, many of them fatal, others greatly depreciating their value. Among these are the scab, the result of the attachment of an insect, the Acarus scabiei, first to the wool, and afterward to the skin and flesh of the sheep, causing severe torture and a most intolerable itching to the poor animal, causing it to rub off its wool and produce ugly sores on its back and sides, in which the pestiferous