220 RESOURCES OF CALIFORNIA, 
indigenously in the open country, and they always suffer for 
it. From March to July the pasture is abundant and ex- 
cellent, and the cattle-are fat; from July to October, in ordi- 
nary years, the grasses and clovers, though dry and brown, are 
nutritious, and the cattle still remain in good condition; but 
from October to January they grow lean rapidly, and almost 
every year a considerable number of them die by starvation. 
Either the grass may be all consumed, or it may be deprived 
of its nutriment. The first case happens when the grass is 
very scanty, because of a small fall of rain during the winter ; 
the second occurs when a heavy rain, lasting a day or two, 
comes before New Year’s day, and is followed by cold dry 
weather. The rain takes away the palatable and nutritious 
qualities of the old grass, and the cold and dry weather pre- 
venis the starting of the new grass, and between the two the 
cattle suffer. In 1856, seventy thousand head of cattle died in 
Los Angeles county alone by starvation, one-third of the entire 
number in the county. The state has not one large cattle-ranch 
surrounded by fence, and therefore, if a man owns good pas- 
ture land, the cattle of other people come and eat the grass, 
and later in the season his own must suffer. It is impossible 
for the vaqueros to drive away the strange cattle, because they 
enter the ranch on every side every day, and if the grass be 
much better than on adjoining ranches, they will, if driven 
away one day, return the next. The proper and profitable 
method of managing an extensive cattle-ranch, is to have it all 
fenced in and divided off into a few large fields, in which the 
cattle could be pastured at different seasons. It would also be 
2 source of profit to have hay for them or green alfalfa in the 
early winter, so that there would be no danger of a reduction 
to skin and bone: for it costs thrice as much to replace as to 
preserve a pound of flesh. Spanish cattle, when slaughtered 
between September and February, are usually very thin, and 
in the Atlantic States it would be grossly impolitic to send 
such animals to the market. 
§ 163. Imported Cattle—The great majority of the cattle 
