AGRICULTURE. 217 
the ranches, the rodeos of which he attends. It is only in 
times of extraordinary scarcity of grass, that the rancheros are 
particular to drive the cattle of other owners off their lands. 
The rodeo season being over—that is, when the ranchero 
has all his cattle on his own ranch, and his alone—he com- 
mences the work of branding. His vaqueros drive about two 
hundred cows with their calves into the corral every morning, 
and two or three good vaqueros will brand these calves ina 
day. The vaqueros enter the corral with their horses, which 
they need when the calves are large and strong, for many of 
them are three and four months old. If the calf be small, the 
vaquero may be afoot to lasso him. One vaquero throws areata 
over the éalf’s head, and another catches him by the leg; they 
throw him down, and one holds him, while the other gets a 
hot branding-iron and burns the owner’s mark upon its hip. 
“Thus the work goes on from day to day, and from week to 
week, until every calf on the ranch is marked. 
§ 159. Brands.—The law requires that every horse and cow 
shall be branded, with a brand belonging to their owner. The 
brand is made of iron, sometimes representing one or two let- 
ters, sometimes other arbitrary signs, such as a cross, a circle, 
a triangle, or any other design. The brand may be six inches 
long by four wide, and the thickness of the iron is about a 
third of an inch. There is an iron handle, with a wooden 
cross-piece at the end, so that the brand can be handled when 
hot, and held down firmly upon the prostrate calf, until the 
figure is indelibly burned into the skin. A copy of every brand 
must be burned upon leather, and deposited in the county re- 
corder’s office. Every minor and servant on a ranch must use 
the brand of the owner of the ranch. The brand must be 
burned, under penalty, upon all horses and neat cattle, before 
the age of eighteen months. The brand is burned upon the 
hip, and indicates ownership; when the animal is sold, the 
brand is burned upon the shoulder, and indicates sale. The 
purchaser then puts bis brand upon the hip; and thus the skin 
of a Californian horse or cow contains the history of its owner- 
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