STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 143 



wools. Iii our high-bred merino flocks this shrinkage runs very high, 

 from fifty to seventy-five per cent, and reduces their comparative value 

 very materially. 



Upon the views here expressed arises the question, can these disad- 

 vantages be so overcome as to enable California wools to compete with 

 those <»f the Western States — Michigan and Ohio, for example? We 

 rely with confidence that they can just so soon as our flock masters come 

 to exercise the same discrimination in the choice of rams, the same care- 

 ful attention to their business, the same abundant provision of food for 

 their flocks, and bring themselves to a complete discontinuance of the 

 practiee of fall shearing. This course will give to their wools all those 

 desirable characteristics in which they are now deficient, and with 

 proper care in putting up the fleeces, they will show to almost as good 

 advantage as the wools from the States mentioned, with which they can- 

 not now be compared at all. 



Where the native grasses are now the entire dependence, some further 

 provision should be made for the fall months, and especially for the 

 period intervening between the killing out of the old grass and the spring- 

 ing up of the new. This provision will vary with the character of the 

 range, but should be sufficient to keep the flock in fair condition and in 

 good strength throughout the year. In our own experience, an expen- 

 diture of about twenty-five cents per head carried our own flock safely 

 through the severe winter of eighteen hundred and sixty-one and ei<i - h- 

 teen hundred and sixty-two, on an extremely light range, and with very 

 little shelter from the storms. 



Where the ranges are thinned out by overstocking, and the grasses — 

 as in many localities is now the case — are supplanted with weeds, the 

 stock should be removed to more remote localities, and in doing this but 

 little objection should be made to the increased cost of getting the wool 

 to market, as any such increased expense would prove to be but an insig- 

 nificant item, and it should be borne in mind that relatively to its value 

 there is no article of produce so cheaply transported as wool. 



This course of alternate feeding out the range and removal to new 

 pasture will answer partially for years to come; but, as before remarked, 

 the owners of large tracts of land and the regular farmers must ulti- 

 mately control the wool product of this coast. To the latter the posses- 

 sion of such numbers of sheep as can be kept well on the refuse of these 

 farms will prove an immense advantage, directly by the yearly return of 

 wool, and by the cheap and convenient supply for the table, and indi- 

 rectly by the benefit to the soil. 



A fine illustration of this indirect benefit has recently occurred to our 

 notice on the farm belonging to Mr. Robert Blacow, in Alameda Oonnty. 

 On this farm a lot that had been used for a year as a pasture for about 

 sixty head of sheep, was this year put into grain, the yield was a hundred 

 per cent greater than from other portions of his farm, or than that from 

 any of the farms adjacent ; this increase could only be attributed to the 

 sheep, and alone paid much more than the cost of their keeping. 



As to the most profitable breeds of sheep, we can present but a few 

 casual remarks. Of the distinctively wool producing breeds, the French 

 and Spanish or Vermont merinos arc unquestionably the only profitable 

 ones ; both have their earnest advocates, but between the best selections 

 of the two breeds there appears to be but little difference. Both thrive 

 well, are equally healthy, and produce fleeces of nearly equal market 

 value. The French merinos are larger boned, heavier carcass, and heavier 

 fleece than the Spanish; the latter have a more uniform and somewhat 



