970 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Hgeucy acting under orders from the Secretary of the Interior. They 

 will fatten and sell their stock rather than maintain a contention of 

 that kind, and their retirement will give ojiportunity to a class of land 

 speculators already too numerous and too busy for the best interests 

 of the animal industries of the State. The industry of this class of 

 men in seeking for investments on the western slopes of the Sierras 

 facing the great plains is shown by the following letter to the Ameri- 

 can Sheep-Breeder: 



The wool-growers in this section have been organized ina secret society for ahont 

 one year under the name of the California and Nevada "Wool-growers' Association, 

 its object being mutual protection and the education necessary to their interests and 

 success. 



Much labor has been done to protect their interest in the right to the use of the 

 large body of public lands in this country, which throngh fraudulent schemes are 

 being transferred to the State as lion lands for the sixteenth and thirty-sixth sec- 

 tions — transferred to the State for school purposes. 



The officers of the General Government have been notified throngh this organiza- 

 tion by a petition to withhold their approval of these selections, which are being 

 made by a ring of land speculators in such a manner as to deprive any person who 

 desires to become a settler from doing so, by locating all springs and water courses, 

 thereby controlling thousands of acres surrounding these locations. 



Generally these selections are made by the land grabbers who never pay for the 

 lands thus obtained, the State only requiring a payment of 20 per cent or 25 cents 

 per acre thereon, the balance standing indefinitely at 7 per cent interest. 



The individual could do nothing to oppose this great land-grabbing scheme, there- 

 fore this organization was formed for this and for such other purposes as would best 

 conduce to the interests of the wool-grower. 



This organization will be pleased to correspond with any other similar one for 

 mutual beneiit, or with any persons desirous of organizing one. 



D. Hays, 

 Secretary California and Nevada Wool-growera' Association. 



It is doubtless for grazing purposes that those lands on the eastern 

 slopes are sought. On the western slopes the timber tracts most con- 

 venient of access chiefly invite capital. The means which have been 

 used and will be used to attain legal ownership of all land of that kind 

 prospectively valuable are hardly worth an allusion. There is every 

 reason to believe that perjury is one of the professions of a certain class 

 of squatters on these mountain lands, and it is the statements of such 

 men, given to newspaper correspondents who are venturesome enough 

 to penetrate the elevated ranges in the company of United States 

 troops, that are set before the public in opposition to the statements of 

 the oldest and most respected industrial pioneers of the State to prove 

 that sheep-owners (whose every interest is opposed to firing the ranges 

 on these mountains) are the " Huns of California," who ought to be 

 driven from the land and kept from it by a permanent patrol of dragoons. 

 Such recommendation was made by Allen Kelly, who, claiming to be 

 acting for the California State Forestry Commission, published his find- 

 ings and recommendations in the San Francisco Examiner of January 

 19j 1892. On the other side are submitted letters of men who have 



