New England, the other in Nebraska and the land is still in the family. 



100 years ago an irncle came to California for gold and ended up trail- 

 ing sheep to Montana. The third time he trailed sheep, he owned the sheep. 

 He sold out in 1908 and moved to Long Beach where he ran sheep on the local 

 range. In 191 4 he decided to take advantage of modern technology and drove 

 a Model T to Great Falls — evidently over the sheep trails he walked a third 

 of a century earlier. Of all the people he had the greatest choice of "free- 

 way". In 1945 when I was docked in San Pedro I called my uncle and we made 

 a date to meet at the Biltmore Hotel. He took me in his Franklin car from 

 there throu^ Hollywood to the ocean over the area where he once ran sheep. 

 VOiat do you think of the "urban sprawl" in his lifetime? 



Alienation of the Public Domain speeded up after the first World War 

 and now a half century later, you and I can't keep up with land acquisitions 

 by all phases of government. 



Our rangelands have gone through some environmental extremes that have 

 undoubtedly changed the forage composition. First was heavy stocking of the 

 range in the 1880' s, dry years, and overgrazing. Restocking in the 1890's 

 was followed by dry years and overgrazing in the early 1900' s. We have a 

 range picture of the ranch taken in the spring of 1903. It looks like the 

 ground had been summer fallowed. When the Chicago market was I5OO miles 

 and three weeks away, if you didn't do your marketing properly, you were in 

 trouble. In I919 my Father started shipping cattle to Chicago the last of 

 June. He learned his lesson about 20 years before. 



The boom years of World War I were followed by drought, long hard win- 

 ters, and low prices. My father broke sod and raised a wheat crop in I9I8 

 that yielded over 80 bushels per acre. This land reverted back to native 

 range and in recent years has bluebunch wheatgrass in the forage mix. 



Adjacent land was farmed for about 10 years by a homesteader and aban- 

 doned in the rough and tough 1920' s. The top soil of 6 to 8 inches blew a- 

 way and left a gravel base. 



In the 1950's the county commissioners asked my father to buy the land 

 but he wasn't interested. Eventually he bought the land on a tax deed for 

 500 an acre. After seeding three times he got a stand of crested wheatgrass 



70 



