SHEEP UNDER FARM CONDITIONS 147 



now. When the rush to the gold fields in Cali- 

 fornia began in 1849, creating suddenly an abnormal 

 demand for food products of all kinds, many of the 

 earlySpanish sheepmen of this territory trailed enor- 

 mous flocks from the ranges of New Mexico across 

 the mountains, down the Gila and Salt rivers to 

 the Colorado, crossing at a point near the present 

 site of Yuma, then across the Mojave desert of Cali- 

 fornia, across the Sierras and up the coast to San 

 Francisco, where they were disposed of to the 

 miners, during the first few years, at extremely high 

 prices, and brought heavy profits to their owners, 

 in spite of the i,ooo-mile overland march to market. 

 The foundation stock of the entire western range, 

 which now supports approximately 70 per cent of 

 the sheep of the United States, came from these old 

 Spanish Merino herds. 



In the eastern part of the United States the sheep 

 industry has varied greatly at different periods. 

 At times the craze for fine-wooled sheep has taken 

 possession of the entire sheep-growing sections, 

 and fancy Merinos have sold at most exorbitant 

 figures. At other times, the popular fancy has 

 tended to the coarse-wooled mutton breeds, and 

 the importations from English sources have been 

 correspondingly heavy. The East reached its 

 highest point in sheep production in the decade 

 following the civil war, when the territory east of 

 the Mississippi supported a little more than 24,- 

 000,000 head, against 11,000,000 owned west of the 

 Mississippi. From this time on the ratio has 

 steadily changed, the East gradually losing interest 

 in the industry on account of the competition of 

 the free western ranges, because of the greater 

 profits to be had from grain farming, and from 

 other forms of live stock, because of cheap wool 



