CAREYING CAPACITY. 35 



either brought bands of cattle with them or drove them in a year 

 or two later, and for several years the region was a great unfenced 

 cattle range. Humboldt County was first settled in the vicinity of 

 Humboldt Bay in 1849 or 1850. A cattle ranch was maintained in 

 Clear Lake Valley prior to 1849 by Andrew Kelse}- and Charles Stone, 

 who were murdered by Indians in December, 1849. 



According to Carl Purdy, a "for years Mendocino County was a cat- 

 tle county, with all the wild lawlessness which pertains to that indus- 

 try and conflicting squatters' rights. As the wild animals were killed 

 out the high price of wool stimulated sheep growing; until 1875 the 

 mountainous country was almost entirely devoted to that branch of 

 grazing. Then the mountain land was surveyed and landowners 

 obtained titles, lands were fenced, and the second stage of grazing 

 reached. The large profits in sheep raised the price of grazing lands 

 to too high a figure, and graziers were tempted to overreach them- 

 selves by the purchase of surrounding lands. " Then came a fall in 

 the price of wool, and many rangers replaced their sheep with cattle; 

 others, "overloaded with debts accrued by land purchases, went into 

 bankruptcy." At present the sheep and cattle industries on the 

 ranges are of about equal importance. 



It is even more difficult to obtain information as to the actual con- 

 dition and vegetation of the ranges in the first years of occupation by 

 white people than about the present carrying capacity. There are 

 various indications, however, pointing to a much more highty pro- 

 ductive condition in those early daj r s than has been realized for 

 many years. 



The fact that at the present time the three most abundant grasses 

 are adventive species of foreign origin favors this view. There is evi- 

 dence that the} 7 have become naturalized within coinx3aratively recent 

 3^ears. Small barley grass and soft chess are not recorded as occur- 

 ring in the State at the time of the State geological survey in the 

 early sixties, and Dr. Bolander, who at that time was making a special 

 study of the grasses of California, does not appear to have collected 

 squirrel-tail in either Mendocino or Humboldt when he visited these 

 counties in 1864 and again in 1865. It is evident, therefore, that these 

 grasses, now so abundant, are not only naturalized aliens, but also 

 that the} 7 must have replaced other and equally abundant species, 

 since it is inconceivable that in such a climate fertile soil could long- 

 remain other than densely clothed with some kind of vegetation. Old- 

 timers are unanimously agreed, moreover, that the feed on the ranges 

 has changed materially since they first settled in the country. Mr. 

 Bell, of Bells Springs, sa}\s that the feed on his ranges has changed 

 several times during the twenty-seven years he has lived there, "new " 

 (adventitious) species coming in, becoming predominant, and in their 

 turn giving place to others. 



a Ukiah Dispatch-Democrat. 



