WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 967 



Mr. Baeclitel's letter is dated Willits, Mendocino County, Cal., Feb- 

 ruary 17, 1892, and is as follows: 



Your letter of February 8 was duly received. My answer is as follows: 



First. "Did you charge anything against your flock or sheep for the use of land?" 

 No, we did not, from the fact that we did not know how to get at it. Mountain 

 r.-mges have been secured by parties holding them at a cost rating from $3.50 to $5 

 per acre. Sheepmen estimate that it requires, on an average, about 2 acres to main- 

 tain a sheep. A great deal of the land is unfit for anything; but in entering up a 

 block of that land the bad has to be taken with the good. 



That class of land has not appreciated since it has been secured by sheepmen; if 

 anything, it has gone the other way. You can to-day, in our county, buy that class 

 of range laud from $2.50 to $3.50 per acre. Sheepmen owning range and sheep have 

 been leasing them from $1 to 75 cents per sheep. At expiration of lease the lessor is 

 to make the number of sheep good. Parties owning range and sheep pay the tax on 

 them. A great many of our range men have been doing little more than holding 

 their old stock good for the last few years, owing to bad seasons and increase of 

 coyotes and other "varmints" that prey upon them. Our lands in the valleys and 

 rolling lands in the foothills have appreciated. Our valley lauds are appraised at 

 $30 per acre; rolling laud from $7 to $10. Our valley land is estimated to maintain 

 a sheep on less than an acre; our rolling land, a sheep to 1-J- acres. Our wool grown 

 in the valleys is no better that on our hill ranges. With same grade of sheep our 

 valley increase is greater, as you will observe by the table I sent you, consequently 

 I think the cost of maintaining a sheep on our hill ranges should apply to our valley 

 sheep in proportion to the amount of land used per sheep, without reference to its 

 appreciated value. Appreciation has been brought about by home-seekers in our 

 valleys. During the period embraced in my former letter our nearest railroad depot 

 was Cloyerdale, Sonoma County, 50 miles distant. We could not haul any of our 

 farm products to that market, therefore we turned our attention to the cheapest and 

 most profitable manner of utilizing our lands. 



Second. "A class who blame sheep and sheep-herders for all forest destruction, by 

 fires, etc., wish to establish a law to prevent grazing on them." Sheep and sheep- 

 men are considered on uniuclosed ranges the vagabonds of the earth by a large class 

 of our people, and are driven from pillar to post. It is an occupation that is just as 

 honorable as any other pursuit in life. A great many things are charged to sheep- 

 men that they are entirely innocent of. Hunters camping around through the moun 

 tains are the ones that do the most of the indiscriminate burning. What interest is 

 it to a sheepman to burn up all his range? Sheepmen on our mountain ranges some- 

 times burn out a portion of their range* where it is so thick with underbrush that 

 nothing can well get through it. They are careful not to let the fire get out from it 

 on any other portion of their range. It prevents "varmints" from harboring in 

 them. The following year the young shoots that spring up from the roots are choice 

 morsels. Those burnt districts are more frequented than any other portion of the 

 range; they afford green food where other portions of the range are dry under- 

 growth, the bane of all mountain ranges. Although sheep will eat more different 

 kinds of grasses and herbs than any other domestic animals, they leave many un- 

 touched, which the fire scavenger must cleanse. I am of the opinion that burning 

 a portion of sheep ranges is no disadvantage to them if conducted with judgment, 

 and no law should be enacted to hamper a man in the pursuit of 'cleansing his own 

 property. 



Our rainfall for the last ten years has been a little above 47 inches in that time. 

 We have had many indiscriminate fires, coming principally from the west. About 



*It must be understood that this practice is pursued, if at all, in a climate and 

 under conditions very dift'eient from those existing in the Sierra Nevada range, east 

 of the plains of central and southern California. 



