ANIMAL INDUSTRIES 249 



because it lacked the process of fulling. They say 

 that the soldiers and their families would have been 

 naked at times but for the clothes brought by the 

 traders. Thus it becomes clear that the only weaving 

 was for blankets,, or, possibly, for rough clothing. 

 However, it may be granted that the mission sheep 

 did produce Christian clothing, but very indirectly, 

 and then not for the Indians. The sheep gave the 

 covering of their backs and kidneys for trade with 

 ship captains, who brought fabrics and finery of all 

 kinds for the personal adornment of the soldiers 

 and rancheros and the families of both. 



Although the pioneers believed that there had 

 been two million sheep grazing the coast lands in 

 1825, so many had perished for their pelts and tallow 

 during the secularization of the mission properties, 

 and so many were probably required to appease the 

 appetites of the first run of gold-seekers in 1849, 

 that the first census taken in 1850 records the exist- 

 ence of only 17,514 sheep, or less than one per cent 

 of the number said to exist twenty-five years before. 

 J. E. Perkins, secretary of the first California Sheep 

 and Wool Growers Association, which was organized 

 in 1860, left this record of the mission sheep, which 

 were then called natives : 



"In size, form, vigor and disposition they were all 

 that is undesirable shearing two to two and a half 

 pounds of coarse, uneven, kempy wool, suited only 

 for the coarsest fabrics and scarcely worth the cost 

 of sacking and transporting to market. Yet it is 

 from this basis that our flocks of the present day 



