AGRICULTURE. 281 



eros are particular to drive the cattle of other owners off their 

 lands. 



The rodeo season being over that is, when the ranchero 

 has all his cattle on his own ranch, and his alone he com- 

 mences the work of branding. His vaqueros drive about two 

 hundred cows with their calves into the corral every morning, 

 and two or three good vaqueros will brand these calves in a 

 day. The vaqueros enter the corral with their horses, which 

 they need when the calves are large and strong, for many of 

 them are three and four months old. If the calf be small, the 

 vaquero may be afoot to lasso him. One vaquero throws 

 a reata over the calf's head, and another catches him by the 

 leg ; they throw him down, and one holds him, while the 

 other gets a hot branding-iron and burns the owner's mark 

 upon its hip. Thus the work goes on from day to day, and 

 from week to week, until every calf on the ranch is marked. 



201. Brands. The law requires that every horse and 

 cow shall be branded with a brand belonging to their owner. 

 The brand is made of iron, sometimes representing one or two 

 letters, sometimes other arbitrary signs, such as a cross, a cir 

 cle, a triangle, or any other design. The brand may be six 

 inches long by four wide, and the thickness of the iron is 

 about a third of an inch. There is an iron handle, with a 

 wooden crosspiece at the end, so that the brand can be han- 

 dled when hot, and held down firmly upon the prostrate calf, 

 until the figure is indelibly burned into the skin. A copy of 

 every brand must be burned upon leather, and deposited in 

 the county recorder's office. Every minor and servant on a 

 ranch must use the brand of the owner of the ranch. The 

 brand must be burned, under penalty, upon all horses and 

 neat cattle, before the age of eighteen months. The brand is 

 burned upon the hip, and indicates ownership ; when the ani- 

 mal is sold, the brand is burned upon the shoulder and indi- 

 cates sale. The purchaser then puts his brand upon the hip ; 

 and thus the skin of a Californian horse or cow contains the 



