Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands

o try sheep-farming in California, and this has led me to look a little clos

on against winter. He has no need for barns or expensive sheds, or for a store of hay or roots. His sheep live out-of-doors all the year round, and it results th

hree years. Land, in the first place, has very greatly risen in price; large ranges are no longer easily or cheaply obtained, and in the coast counties of Sou

r bought simply as "California wool," regardless of its quality. Southern California has a troublesome burr, which is not found north of Sacramento, except on the lower lands. In Southern California it is often difficult to tide the sheep over the fall months in good order, whereas in the northern part of the Sta

their lands, and thus are able to save their pasture and to manage it much more advantageously. They seem to me more careful about overstocking than sheep farmers generally are in the southern part of the State, though it should be understood that such men as Colone

scovered driving scabby sheep through the country would be heavily fined; here the law says nothing on this head, but I have found this spring several sheep owners in the Sacramento

to keep a few sheep always in good condition than many with a period of semi-starvation for them in the fall," said another; and added, "I would rather, if I were to begin over again, spend my money on a breed worth six dollars a head, than one worth two or three dollars, and I would rather not keep sheep at all than not fence." He had his land-about twenty-five thousand acres-fenced off in lots of from four to six thousand acres, and into one of these he turned from six to eight thousand sheep, leaving them

Sweat

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re required, which makes an important saving. One man, with a horse, visi

ent or cure scab, but mops the sore place, when he discovers

and he does not shear any except the lambs, in the fall. It is a common but bad practice here to shear all

wo hundred tons of hay, cut from the wild pastures, to feed in case the rain should hold off uncommonly late. His aim was to keep the sheep always in good con

they drive the sheep in May into the mountains, where they have green grass all summer; and about Red Bluff I saw a curious sight-cattle and horses wandering, singly or in small groups, of their own motion, to the mountains, and actually crossing the Sacramento without driving; and I was told that in the fall they would return, each to its master's rancho. I am satisfied that, ex

l land at its real value; and, except with good management, it will not pay to keep sheep on land fit for grain and taxed as grain land, which a great

it entirely. They believe that it will be better for sheep as hay than as green food; and this lucerne grows so ran

to keep some sheep; and he can keep them more ea

ally low prices, and with such credit on much of it as would enable a man with capital enough to stock his tract to pay for the land out of the proceeds of the sheep. The white sage in the Humboldt Valley is very nutritious, and there is also in the subsidiary valleys bunch-grass and other nutritious food for stock. Not a few young men have gone into this Humboldt country with a few hu

eighteen inches deep, on a cleared space, and then, with rags and brush, drive the grasshoppers toward these holes, forming for that purpose a wide circle. It is slow work, but they seem to delight in it; and their excitement was great as they neared the circle of holes and the insects began to hop and fall into them. At last there was a close and rapid rally,

rs this year; nothing like the year of which an inhabitant of Roseville spoke to me later in the day, when he s

northern counties has two advantages over his southern competitor: first, in the ability to buy low-lying lands on the river, where he can graze from three to six or even ten sheep to the acre during the summer months, and where he may plant large tracts in alfalfa; and, secondly, in a safe refuge against drought in the mountain meadows of

that the most enterprising and intelligent sheep men in the northern counties send their wool

e it valuable agricultural land as soon as the valley begins to fill up; and thus, aside from the profit from the sheep, the owner may safely reckon upon a large increa

oast counties, such as the Lampoe rancho of Hollester & Diblee, and lands in the Salinas Valley, whic

view, Northe

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