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miles, cannot get a taste of butter or cheese, nor milk to color his black and bitter coffee.

Notwithstanding the genial climate, wide range, and splendid pasturage of California, fully one-third of all the butter used in the State is imported from the Atlantic States; this, too, is the case with Oregon, Washington Territory, and British Columbia. The people of these regions send their orders from their perpetual green fields and rich pasturage to New York and even to the icy land of Canada for their butter. This, perhaps, is not worse than sending to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia for dried fruits, from California and Oregon, when thousands of tons of green fruit can be gathered in the orchards of these States, and bought for less than the freight from the east. Through most parts of the Pacific coast dried fruits are imported thousands of miles at great cost, while the ground in many orchards is covered with superior fruit, which rots in tons every year.

THE HORSE.-Of all parts of the world California is the favorite land for the horse: here he has for centuries roamed at will over the vast rich valleys, where the native grass, flowers, and wild oats grow luxuriantly.

Previous to the American occupation of the country, the horse was not doomed to the servile labor of drawing the plow or wheeled carriage, as no such articles were known to the population: his only occupation was to carry his master upon his back; stables and harness were equally unknown.

The original stock introduced into the country from Spain and Mexico possessed excellent qualities for the saddle, being light bodied, high spirited, and fleet.

After roaming wild in great bands, without any care, the stock soon degenerated to all sorts of base colorsclaybank, drab, and spotted; leaving few of the deep bay, iron-gray, pure white, or jet black: still the spirit, endurance, and speed of the original Spanish stock remained, and, while the California horse became unfitted for heavy draught, he became the finest saddlehorse in the world, able to carry his rider sixty and one hundred miles in a day over a rough road, and perform these journeys several days in succession, without other food than could be gathered from the soil on his journey.

The California horse rarely trots or walks: his gait, under the saddle, is a fast gallop, which he will keep up, over hill and down mountain sides alike, through a whole day's journey, and generally pressing hard on the rein, the whip or spur being rarely necessary.

Breaking these horses to the saddle is attended with much difficulty. Many of them at four, five, and even ten years of age have never been within an enclosure, nor had the hand of man upon them. They are lassoed, like other wild beasts, blindfolded, a saddle and bridle put upon them, and then mounted by the vaquero, (rider.) Rearing, pitching, rolling, and jumping stifflegged, until they are completely exhausted, is a part of their first exercise. They are, however, soon broken to the saddle, and from the commencement of their training rarely exhibit a vicious disposition, and, when once fairly broken, are kind, gentle, and fond of their

master.

Horses in California increase fast, and are entirely free from disease: bots, worms, spavin, ringbone, and kindred diseases, are almost unknown. The evenness of the climate, with an abundance of good, wholesome

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food, and freedom from unwholesome and close stables and attacks of colds, renders the horse healthy, muscular, sound, and hardy beyond the horses of any other part of the United States, if not of any other part of the world. Of the three hundred thousand horses in California, fully one-half are wild Mexican stock, running in large bands throughout the southern part of the State. Many thousand are owned by persons who know them only by the brand.

Throughout the State generally the horse is an indispensable domestic servant. Everybody rides: men going to their employment in the fields mount their horses; neighbors visiting, and children going to school in the country, all ride. It is rare to see a person making a journey on foot, except in the mining regions.

California has many fine roads, and to all parts of the interior the chief travel is done by stages-large, comfortable Concord coaches-carrying from twelve to twenty persons, and drawn by four or six horses. Relays of fresh horses are kept at each ten or twelve miles on the road, and while in the coach are generally at a gallop, and the speed with which these horses dash down the mountain sides, and over and along the deep gulches and beside the frowning precipices, is fearful.

In the cities and towns, horses are very numerous, and in San Francisco county (which is but the size of the city) there are over ten thousand horses. Los Angeles county has the largest number of horses of any county in the State-fifteen thousand.

There being neither timothy nor clover in California, the native grasses, wild oats, oats, and barley, cut green, form the hay-feed of horses. Barley, which grows very abundantly, and has a very large, dry, and plump grain,

is supplied to horses generally, and is supposed to be superior to oats for this purpose.

The introduction of superior horses into the State is fast improving the native stock, and the cross between the imported and native horse has many points of superiority not to be found in either in their original purity.

Mules are not generally used in the State. At an early day the carrying of freight into the mines and over the mountains was done chiefly by pack-trains of mules; but of late years rail and wagon roads have supplanted them. There are but about twenty-eight thousand mules in the State, scattered through each county; Mendocino county having about three thousand-more than double that of any other county in the State. Mules are no more serviceable than horses, and cost generally more than double as much as the ordinary farm-horse. Much of the heavy hauling and of the labor connected with the government service is still done by mules.

Oxen are rarely used, either upon the farm or for general labor, in California; they are considered too slow, and except in the lumber districts are scarcely to be seen. All the ploughing and farm work is done by horses and mules.

HOGS.-The greater part of the State of California is not well adapted for hogs: it is too dry; but in the tule and low lands they thrive well. Labor and food for hogs are too expensive to make the raising of hogs profitable where they have to be fed by hand. There are six hundred thousand hogs in the State; still the increase has been but little for many years. Considera

ble quantities of bacon and ham are cured in the State; and as the Chinese in the country use no other meat but fresh pork, much of the pork of the State is consumed by these people.

POULTRY - Turkeys, geese, ducks, and hens all thrive well in California, and many a fortune has had its foundation laid in the hen's nest, in the State, in the early days when eggs were from three to ten dollars per dozen, and chickens from two to ten dollars per pair. The aggregate number of turkeys, geese, ducks, and fowls in the State is one million five hundred thousand.

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BEES.-Bees do well all over the Pacific coast. Oregon they make honey from the branches of the fir trees; and in California the mild climate and the abundance of wild flowers enable bees to make honey eight to ten months in the year, and to propagate their species with great rapidity, one hive often producing twenty swarms in a year. The production of honey in California is much greater than in any other part of the United States, and is about five times as much as is produced in the Atlantic States. There are about sixty thousand hives in California, Colusa county having sixteen thousand-more than one-fourth of all the hives in the State: then comes Butte county, with twentyfive hundred hives; next comes Stanislaus county, with about two thousand hives; and Monterey and Los Angeles counties, with about eighteen hundred each. Bees will thrive well in every county in the State.

In the southern section of California great quantities of bees have swarmed in the trunks of hollow trees and become wild. There are great quantities of honey obtained annually from these deserters.

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