CHAPTER Y. 



THE SHEEP INDUSTRY IN CALIFORNIA, OREGON, AND WASHINGTON. 



CALIFORNIA. 



The first domestic sheep were brought to California from Mexico by 

 the Catholic missionaries. They were used as an agency in the mis- 

 sionary work of christianizing and civilizing the native race by teach- 

 ing the care of sheep to the men and the manufacture of clothing to the 

 women. They also contributed toward furnishing a food supply to all, 

 thus rendering needless the wild hunter's life. 



The character of the sheep was of a very low grade, both as to wool 

 and mutton products. It is assumed by some writers that the imme- 

 diate improvement which results from crossing them with the Merino is 

 an indication that these sheep were of Merino origin, brought into 

 Mexico by the enterprise of Spanish colonists and suffered to degen- 

 erate by neglect. It is much more probable they were of the coarse- 

 wooled sheep kept on the lowlands of Spain, against the deportation 

 of which, by emigrants to Ajnerica, the Spanish laws did not inter- 

 vene, as in the case of the fine-wooled Merino. Of the latter Spain 

 held a monopoly, which was so strictly guarded by law that they could 

 not be exported but by the king's permission. It was only by such 

 permission that flocks were drawn from Spain by the elector of Saxony 

 and the kiDgs of France and of England. But whether these Mexican 

 sheep were descendants from the royal flocks of the golden-fleeced 

 Merino or the plebeian coarse- wooled stocks of the Spanish farms, they 

 were, when in the hands of the early Catholic missionaries of Califor- 

 nia, a small boned, light-bodied sheep, generally white-faced and white- 

 fleeced. The ewes were mostly hornless, but in all flocks there were a 

 few ewes with two and sometimes four horns. These sheep were of 

 nearly all colors, indicative of carelessness in breeding for many gen- 

 erations. The fleece was of medium length, coarse, dry, and wiry, giv- 

 ing an average of about two pounds of wool suitable for the rude man- 

 ufacture of the Indian neophytes of the missions, or, as it is now used, 

 for carpets. 



Few, if any of these sheep passed into the hands of even the Mexican 

 settlers of California previous to the secularization of the missions. 

 The law secularizing the missions placed the disposal of the live stock 

 in the hands of the government officers, called administrators, and 

 under them the property was scattered by sale and use. From 1832, 

 when the process began, until 1848, when the discovery of gold broke 

 all recorded connection between the animal industries of California 

 under the rule of the Latin race and its Saxon successors, sheep are 



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