30 AMERICAN HOMES 
in the opén, but in this work the men are forced into deep 
and very steep canons that require great physical strength 
and power to navigate, and the vast herd of sheep that I 
finally saw at the corral was only obtained after strenuous 
labor, pluck and bravery. 
The shearing here is an interesting occasion, and at this 
Shearing Time on the Ranch 
time gangs of Mexican shearers are carried to San Clemente 
and Catalina. A camp is formed, the corral selected for the 
round-up, and soon the men are at work at the shearing; 
and there are barbacues to celebrate the event at many 
shearings. 
The shearing, in fact the entire business, is in the hands of 
AUN D? 1-G ACReDIESNES January, 1906 
experienced men who at Santa Catalina live on the Middle 
Ranch of the island in an attractive canon, the headquarters 
of this particular industry. The manager has charge of the 
herders and carries on the business for the owners who have 
summer homes on the island and in Los Angeles, one being 
in the Descanco Canon, which seems to flow downward, a 
verdant river, ending in a little bay 
back from which a lawn dotted with 
tropical and semi-tropical trees 
reaches the house shut in by the 
great spurs of the island mountains. 
A more picturesque ‘‘pasture” for 
the “hoofed locust’? can not be im- 
agined. At Avalon there is a town 
of five or six thousand people in 
summer with all the adjuncts of 
civilization. 
In contrast to this is the industry 
at the island of San Nicolas, eighty 
miles to the northwest. I tried sev- 
eral times to reach this place, which 
appears to be the home of the wind 
god, as apparently it blows a gale 
of wind eternally. Twice our vessel 
was literally blown off, and when we 
did make the wind-swept island 
it was a picture of desolation, so 
barren, so storm-bound at surround- 
ing points, that it became invested 
with peculiar interest. 
There were several thousand 
sheep here, though it required a search to find anything 
but sand, and these were in charge of a single herder, a 
Basque, who had been placed on the island three months: 
previous with provisions and two dogs, and left without 
other companions. A more desolate situation it would 
be difficult to imagine. As we made the dangerous 
A View of the Santa Catalina Sheep Ranch 
