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CHAPTER XXIV.

Sheep and wool-Horses-Cattle raising and branding-Rodeos→→→ Native horsemanship-Lassoing grizzly bears-Poultry and bees.

SHEEP AND WOOL.-Both the climate and soil of California are admirably adapted to sheep. The even temperature, generally dry weather, freeness from destructive storms, wide range of pasture, and the fact that sheep do not require shelter or food other than what nature supplies, greatly reduces the cost and labor so necessary in the Atlantic States and Europe.

Flocks in California are free from disease, and the loss by wild animals not a quarter of that throughout the Atlantic States. Sheep grow fast and mature earlier in California than in any other part of America. Ewes generally have lambs when one year old, and twins and triplets are common.

The original stock of sheep was of a very inferior quality, and consisted of the remnants of the old mission flocks and bands of very inferior stock brought into the State overland from New Mexico. But as the importance of wool-growing begins to attract attention, the stock is exhibiting signs of decided improvement by the introduction of pure-blooded sheep. Still there are flocks of the old stock (Mexican sheep) yet in the State, roaming the sandy and dusty plains of the southern section of California, as much like wolves, as regards wool, as like sheep. This class averages a fleece of wool, sand, and dirt, as it is sheared, of only two pounds. Inferior American sheep in the State average a clip of four pounds; while merino and improved breeds yield

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from six or eight to twelve and twenty pounds. The largest fleece produced in the State was by a French merino buck in Monterey county-forty-two pounds. All these weights are given before the fleeces are washed.

The raising of sheep for their wool was first commenced in California in 1853, and since that period the increase has been steady. The first exportation of wool from the State was in 1855-three hundred and sixty thousand pounds. The wool crop of California for 1871 reached twenty-eight million pounds, worth about seven million five hundred thousand dollars. Of the entire growth, four million pounds were used in the factories in California, and twenty-two million five hundred thousand pounds sold in the Atlantic States, of which 2,223,322 pounds went by sea, and 20,100,182 pounds by rail.

The remarkable development of wool-growing in California, and the unlimited extent to which it may attain in the genial climate and on the broad ranges of the Golden State, and the importance of this product to the nation, may be ascertained in some degree by the table here giving the export of wool from San Francisco during the past fifteen years:

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There are about two million five hundred thousand

sheep and twenty-five thousand Cashmere and Angora

goats in the State. Flocks of three, eight, ten, and twenty thousand are not uncommon; and one sheepraiser in the southern section of the State, who, in 1853, commenced in poverty to raise sheep, has now about eighty thousand acres of land, and owns forty thousand sheep, chiefly of superior breeds.

There are six woollen mills in California, which use annually over four million pounds of wool. Cassimeres, tweeds, flannels, a variety of other goods, and blankets, are produced at these mills Only the finest grades of wool are used, and the California made blankets, in size, weight, and fineness, surpass those made in any other part of the world. California is now highest on the list of wool-producing States in the Union.

CATTLE. As early as the first settlement of Cali fornia, cattle were introduced from Spain and Mexico. But little attention was paid to milk or butter, and cattle of every description and age ran wild together. They soon multiplied, and in great herds grazed upon the hills and roamed the valleys as wild as deer. They were used only for beef and for their hides and tallow, which, for many years prévious to the American occupation of the country, formed the chief export. At this early period cows were never milked; when beef was wanted, the vaquero, reata in hand, mounted his fleet horse, dashed into the band, and, snaring one, led it to the slaughter; or, when hides and tallow were wanted for the trading vessels of the coast, whole herds were slaughtered upon the field, the hides and tallow carried away, and the carcass left where the animal was slain. Great numbers of Spanish cattle still roam

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