4 Transactions op the 



the Coast Range, and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Those who 

 explored in the latter direction found to their surprise and gratification 

 an abundance of the most nutritive grasses, sufficient to feed all the 

 stock then in California during the entire season. They found there 

 countless valleys waving with excellent bunch grass, and extensive 

 green meadows, furnishing nutritious and plentiful grazing for their 

 flocks and herds, ranging almost to the very summits of the highest 

 Sierras. These extensive high table lands have been the resort of thou- 

 sands of cattle and sheep every Summer since that date, and have been 

 a most valuable addition to the stock raising resources of the State. 

 Those who turned their steps towards the low tide and swamp lands 

 were scarcely less successful. They found thousands of acres of the 

 most prolific natural meadows of which the world has any history, 

 abounding in wild clover, timothy, and other native grasses. Besides 

 pasturing large numbers of horses, cattle, and sheep during the Summer 

 of eighteen hundred and sixty-four, it was estimated by this Board at 

 that time, and upon reliable data, that there were cut and secured on 

 these meadows, by parties in different portions of the State, not less 

 than fifty thousand tons of a very fair article of hay, and that at least 

 fifty thousand tons more were left standing upon them uncut. 



The lessons taught b} r the dry seasons of eighteen hundred and sixty- 

 three and eighteen hundred and sixty -four have not been forgotten by 

 our people. The discoveries then made have been followed up and 

 rendered available and valuable each year since that time, and now the 

 elevated pasture lands of the mountain districts and the broad, natural 

 meadows of the lowlands around about the confluence of the San Joa- 

 quin and Sacramento Rivers are among the most valuable portions of 

 our State. These two great districts have contributed much during the 

 two past dry seasons to lessen the effects of the drought which we, 

 without a knowledge of them, would have experienced. Our farmers 

 have also learned the great value of straw in keeping stock through the 

 Winter season, and many of them have of late years been seeding down 

 portions of their lands to that most excellent grass, alfalfa, so that we 

 are much better prepared for an extreme dry season in the Summer, or 

 an extreme wet and severe one in the Winter, than we were a few years 

 since. 



Although our official returns show that we had during the past dry 

 season three times as main* acres of land under cultivation in grain and 

 other crops in the State as during the seasons of eighteen hundred and 

 sixty-three and eighteen hundred and sixty-four, more than three times 

 as many head of horses and mules, one-third more cattle, and more than 

 eight times as many sheep and goats, yet the losses of stock from the 

 effects of the drought of the past year were very light compared to the 

 losses sustained in eighteen hundred and sixty-four. 



These facts show a most gratifying improvement in the condition of 

 our stock raising industries, and at the same time exhibit in a most 

 striking manner the expansive nature and almost unlimited extent of our 

 stock raising resources when properly understood and husbanded. 



While upom this subject, we would urge upon our farmers the great 

 benefits to be derived from a practice of keeping a few head of stock — 

 sheep and cattle — on their farms to eat their grain straw, in preference 

 to burning it, as is still the practice in many portions of the State. This 

 straw, eaten and trampled by the cattle, may be made a source of direct 

 profit to the farmer in furnishing our markets with beef when they are 

 most poorly supplied and when beef commands the highest prices, and 



