AGKICULTURE. 231 



SO healthy, do not increase so rapidly, do not grow so large 

 within the first two years, and do not produce so much wool. 

 The land of the sheep ranches in California is not worth more 

 than five dollars per acre, on an average probably not more 

 than three dollars. It follows that sheep-breeding should be 

 very profitable here, and so it is. The ewes, when properly 

 taken cai'e of, have lambs before they are a year old — increase 

 one hundred per cent, every year. The cost of keeping large 

 herds is variously estimated from thirty-seven to fifty cents 

 per head annually, exclusive of the interest of the land used 

 for pasturage. The wool of a good sheej) will pay twice the 

 cost of keeping it ; and the wool and lamb together, of a fine- 

 blood ewe, are worth eight or ten times the cost. It is the 

 present custom to sell the wethers for mutton when a year old, 

 but this is bad policy, save with the poorest sheep. 



The old missions had large herds of sheep, but after the 

 management of those large establislnnents was taken from 

 the priests and given to civil officers, in 1833, the sheep were 

 neglected and most of them were killed. Twenty years 

 later very few were left in the state, but there was a demand 

 for mutton, so large herds were driven from New Mexico. 

 These were a very poor stock, but they were for a long time 

 the only sheep that could be had, and they now form the great 

 majority of the sheep in the state. The first attempt to breed 

 sheep as an exclusive business in California, since the Ameri- 

 can conquest, was commenced in 1853, by a poor man who 

 had nothing save nine hundred ewes ; and they increased so 

 rapidly and proved so profitable, that now, if report be true, 

 he has ten thousand sheep, sixteen thousand acres of land, and 

 other property to the value of one hundred thousand dollars. 

 Within the last three years many sheep of fine blood have been 

 imported, and these will gradually swallow up the Mexican 

 stock. The imported kinds are American, Southdown, Aus- 

 tralian Merino, Fiench Merino, and Spanish Merino. Of the 

 two latter varieties there are few save bucks. The prices of 

 sheep fluctuate, but the relative prices of the different breeds 



