WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI EIVER. 973 



There is no fence law in California, the law requiring owners of live 

 stock to take care of it. This leaves many a fine homestead exposed 

 to night marauders in search of grass, and it has occurred that such a 

 homestead has been invaded and grazed bare while the owner slept, and 

 when the next day, exasperated and armed, he tracked the marauding- 

 flock 8 or 10 miles from the scene of the mischief, he found the party 

 in charge of the flock pretending to be utterly ignorant of the cause of 

 complaint — as my informant said, "regular know-nothings." One case 

 is reported as resulting fatally to the transgressor the past summer. 

 The American claimed that the Basque was repeatedly told he was 

 herding on private property and warned off. The offense was repeated 

 and the herder was shot. In another case it was reported that the 

 Basque attempted to play the bully and was killed as a consequence. 

 It is but fair to state that a very intelligent countryman of these men 

 (who has acted as their agent in marketing over 1,000,000 pounds uf 

 wool and in the purchase of over 3,000 improved rams for them 

 during the past season) holds that these kilUngs were simply delib- 

 erate murder. Be that as it may, this foreigu element has at the 

 present time got the outranges of southern California so filled with 

 sheep that should a dry winter season occur there will be great loss. 

 Though they might be willing to buy feed — which they will not do so 

 long as it is .possible to avoid it — the feed is not there to sell. They, 

 like the Americans who have more sheep than their lands will carry, 

 have to depend largely on hiring stubbles for fall and winter pastures 

 and on grazing the mountain ranges in the summer. On the one hand, 

 the rapid extension of fruit farming is lessening the wheat lands ; on 

 the other, a Government policy of employing soldiers during the sum- 

 mer months to prevent the grazing of the national reserves in the sup- 

 posed interest of forest preservation will have a very injurious effect 

 on the business of this class of men. Few of these attempt to become 

 citizens, and when they do, it is generally with a view to acquiring 

 range rights by taking up homesteads, which they sell with their flock 

 when they conclude to realize and go back to their own country. 



As a class, they occupy the same relation to English-speaking men 

 engaged in sheep-raising that Chinese laborers held to white laborers 

 on this coast before they were excluded by law. These people keep 

 good sheep, preferring a cross between the French and Spanish Merino, 

 a majority of their American neighbors doing the same. They also 

 keep them more clean and free from scab than Americans, and yet do 

 not dip as the latter do twice a year. Their method is by what is here 

 called "patching;'' that is, local applications, when a sheep shows any 

 sign of the disease. Their value as customers for pasture lands is 

 recognized by the land agents of the Southern Pacific Railroad Com- 

 pany, who advertise their leasings, dates, and places ia French, Por- 

 tuguese, and English. 



