AGRICULTURE. 287 



cupy places less accessible to the market. Partly on account 

 of the lack of cultivated food, and the large areas necessary 

 to support one cow usually from five to ten acres, (whereas 

 with cultivation, two acres would be sufficient) we have only 

 two cheese factories to work up the milk of a number of dif- 

 ferent farmers, though many of the cheese houses designed to 

 do the work of separate dairies are equal in size to large fac- 

 tories in New York. 



209. Worses. California has 237,000 horses, of which 

 perhaps a fourth are of pure Spanish blood, while the remain- 

 der are mostly mixed American and Spanish blood. The 

 Spanish horses are of the old imported stock, sent early in the 

 sixteenth century from Spain to Mexico, and thence brought to 

 California about eighty years ago. Like the neat cattle, the 

 Spanish horses run wild, and partake to some extent of the wild 

 nature. They show their base blood by their colors mouse 

 color, dull duns of various shades, and calico color, or mixtures 

 of white with red or black, in numerous large spots or blotches, 

 are common ; while chestnut, bright sorrel, blood bay, and dap- 

 pled gray, arc very rare among them. They are quick, tough, 

 healthy, and unsurpassable for the uses of the rider, and the 

 vaquero ; but small, lacking in weight, strength, and beauty, 

 and unfitted for the heavy, steady work of the plough, cart, or 

 wagon. They are wanting in the docility, kindly disposition, 

 and steadiness of the well-bred horse ; and they have little of 

 that kind of sense which leads an American horse to be quiet 

 and gentle, even in circumstances strange to him. For Cali- 

 fornia as it was in 1845, there were no better horses than the 

 Spanish-Mexican. They have a wonderful toughness, and 

 some of their exploits in the way of traveling are unsurpassed 

 in the annals of the turf. A number of instances are on rec- 

 ord where Californian horses have carried a rider one hun- 

 dred miles in a day, and that with no food save grass. Sixty 

 miles a day is not an uncommon ride, nor is it considered a se- 

 vere one. Fremont, on one occasion, rode four hundred miles 



