STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 139 



conclusions, to wit : That at the commencement of the present rebellion 

 both our own and the English markets were supplied with cotton and 

 cotton goods for fully three years in advance; hence the fact, that wool 

 has as yet received so little enhancement from the withdrawal of the 

 bulk of that staple. That ultimately the small accessible supplies and 

 high prices of cotton will produce their effect on the value of wool, 

 besides increasing its use largely and permanently. 



That this result will be felt proportionally in all the wool markets of 

 the world, and that the average prices for the next ten years at least 

 must be highly remunerative to the grower. 



That the utmost expansion that could be attained by the w T hole 

 Pacific Coast would not under any circumstances make up the deficiency 

 of our domestic growth, and even if we could attain a surplus of pro- 

 duction over manufacture, that surplus would have abundant outlet to 

 foreign markets. 



Hence, our policy and interest is to increase the product as largely 

 and as rapidly as possible. 



The facts that sheep of all the principal breeds adapt themselves 

 readily to all the variations of climate and range on the Pacific coast, 

 that the} r are remarkably free from all diseases, that they are here pos- 

 sessed of unusual fecundity, and that the}- suffer no deterioration in 

 weight of carcass, or in the quantity and fineness of their wool, are now 

 beyond question and require no argument. 



Heretofore it has been the universal practice to depend wholly on the 

 natural grasses for the subsistence of the many flocks throughout the 

 State, and but a few years ago these were everywhere abundantly suffi- 

 cient to keep the sheep in thriving condition throughout the year. In 

 the remoter localities, where there is scarcely any limit to the extent of 

 range, this is still the case; but in localities where the land has been 

 full}- stocked with sheep and neat cattle for a term of years, and where 

 year by year the plough has run its furrows wider and wider, gradually 

 circumscribing the original range, it is wholly different. 



The native grasses of California are, with rare exceptions, annuals, 

 propagated each year from the seeds scattered the preceding year. 

 Where the lands have been so persistently overstocked, the herbage has 

 necessarily become thinner and thinner as the seeds have been gradu- 

 ally destroj'ed. This process of depasturage, though not confined to 

 any one species of herbage, is most strikingly exhibited in the great oat 

 ranges, where, less than ten years ago, the traveller would ride for days 

 through wild oats tall enough to tie across his saddle, now dwindled down 

 to a stinted growth of six or ten inches,. with wide reaches of utterly 

 barren land, marking the extinction of the native growth. The pro- 

 gress of this killing out of the native ranges has been very gradual, but 

 has now reached a point when the question of "range" has become the 

 most formidable one the sheep raiser has to encounter. 



This system of stocking the grazing lands must ultimately result in 

 their entire depasturage, and compel the sheep raisers to either a sys- 

 tem of annual removal of their stock to the mountains for summer pas- 

 ture, with provisions for fall and winter feeding on the plains, the pur- 

 chase and inclosure of tracts of laud of sufficient extent to permit such 

 alternate feeding over different portions as the land could sustain with- 

 out exhaustion, or the breaking up of many of the large flocks, and their 

 distribution among the regular farmers. 



It is probable that for many years to come open and unoccupied land 

 can be found so situated that it cannot be used profitably for other agri- 



