40 



Sierra Club Bulletin, 



But what becomes of many of these " ranches " ? 

 The young folks have started out for new fields, and the 

 pioneers, the aging settlers, find the grubbing-hoe and 

 the puUing-rope too hard to handle in their declining 

 days. " Thorns, also, and thistles shall it bring forth," 

 seems to be true even here, where never an Eden blos- 

 somed. The owner of cattle has his eyes on places of just 

 such character, and his opportunity is ripe on the day 

 when one of the old couple is borne to the grave and the 

 other leaves to end her days with the young folks in 

 town. The ranch is now added to the large area of the 

 neighbor's already princely holding, and only by old 

 boards and scantlings can the spot be traced where once a 

 home sent the curling smoke to heaven. 



Well might the question be put: What profiteth all 

 this? What eventually happens to this uncultivated 

 land? As time goes by, wild "shoestring" oats and 

 bronco-grass flourish. Too tough to offer food for stock, 

 they survived the continuous close cropping and hold the 

 ground once occupied by sweet clovers and tender 

 grasses. Next we see a gaping cut through the deep soil. 

 Here the miner's " giant," the tremendous force of the 

 two-inch nozzle, has cut the channel following the lead 

 on the bedrock below. The gold that was found has been 

 minted in distant communities, and the abyss laughs at 

 man's attempts to restore the old conditions. And this 

 was once a glorious piece of f orestland ! The giants were 

 cut down to fill the riffles of the miner's sluice-boxes. 

 Being then cleared of stumps and rocks, it was fenced, 

 and yielded an annual crop of grain. It paid for cultiva- 

 tion as long as the owner found occasional employment, 

 ere the work in the timber round about had given out. 



