252 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



Saxon, and Silesian Merinos; Southdowns; Cots- 

 wolds; Leicestershires ; Shropshires ; Cheviots; Chi- 

 nese. At the fair of 1861, W. M. Landrum exhibited 

 Cashmere goats, "the first introduced into the state." 

 Speaking of the array of pure-breds on 'exhibition, 

 the committee of judges for 1860 enthusiastically 

 reports: "No department of agriculture has more 

 just claims upon attention of our people than wool 

 growing. That many of our most enterprising farm- 

 ers are actively awake to this idea is sufficiently at- 

 tested by the numerous flocks of the finest classes 

 of sheep already imported and reared here regardless 

 of cost. We have seldom met so fine an exhibition in 

 any part of the world, whether development of form 

 or texture of fleece is considered." The spirit and 

 achievement thus manifested by the wool-growers of 

 the first American decade continued active and effect- 

 ive for the two following decades. 



It is interesting to note that the first state -wide 

 organization of flock owners was the California 

 Sheep and Wool Growers Association organized on 

 September 24, 1860 "to foster and promote the 

 enterprise of sheep breeding and wool growing in 

 all its branches; and to provide a remedy against a 

 repetition of such efforts to establish a monopoly 

 in the wool market of this state as characterize the 

 operations of the wool buyers this year." The char- 

 ter members of the first association numbered 

 eighteen and they owned in the aggregate 64,825 

 sheep from which a spring clip of 157,000 pounds 



