WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. 975 



In all the inland counties of California the Merino sheep as yet finds 

 no competitor for general adaptation. There is a very general effort 

 amongst wool-growers as well as breeders to maintain as large size as 

 the nature of the climate and character of the range pasturage will 

 permit. So far as experience yet indicates, the Merino, improved by 

 American breeding skill, will continue to be as generally the sheep for 

 all the Pacific slope interior to the coast mountains of California as it 

 has been for the past thirty years. Cross-breeding with early-matur 

 ing British breeds, UOAV begun in the coast counties, will increase in 

 those localities, but the dry plains and high mountains inland from 

 the line of British Columbia, to and including New Mexico, are as 

 permanently adapted to the Merino sheep as are the inland plains and 

 mountains of Australia. And the same enduring conditions climate 

 and natural forage plants insure a larger income in shorter time from 

 sheep than is possible to be derived from cattle under any human care 

 and skill. Public and private interests, therefore, point to a future 

 development, in all this vast extent of arid land, of a sheep husbandry 

 Avhich shall be permanently supported and assured by irrigation in 

 producing alfalfa and other crops, to carry stock through periods of 

 summer droughts and winter storms, as is now done by the most suc- 

 cessful flock owners of California, eastern Oregon, and Washington. 

 The present and gradually increasing cost of meats is causing renewed 

 interest in sheep husbandry. Local causes in California and western 

 Oregon are diverting public attention away from sheep husbandry to 

 grain and fruit farming. But in the eastern portions of all three of 

 the Pacific Coast States water for irrigation purposes is as important a 

 factor of success in sheep husbandry as in any other branch of industry. 

 The industry has heretofore been pursued mainly upon the public 

 domain and often under bitter local strife with rivals interested in 

 horses and cattle, and sometimes with bona fide settlers under the 

 homestead law. It needs the proper recognition of public law and a 

 secure tenure of range rights both in the mountains and on the plains, 

 obtained either by purchase at low rates or by lease on nominal terms, 

 similar to the methods pursued in Australia. There are yet oppor- 

 tunities for investments in lands on the foothills in California which 

 might be used for many years to come as bases for sheep husbandry 

 with reasonable probability of a steady rise in the value of the land. 

 But the day of such great appreciation as is indicated in the history 

 of the Lompoc ranch under Hollister & Co., and in the letter of J. P. 

 Whitney, on preceding pages, is past. Still there are thousands of 

 situations west of the summit of the Kocky Mountains in California, 

 Oregon, and Washington, wherein a man enfeebled by miasmatic dis- 

 eases in the Mississippi Valley, or tired with the routine and strain of 

 mercantile pursuits, would find a new lease of life and an occupation 

 not devoid of interest by engaging in sheep husbandry. 



