season they milked between six and seven hundred cows; but as the feed grows shorter with the advance of the dry season, the number gradually dwindles down twenty-five to fifty per cent. As fast as the cows dry up they are sent to the mountains and allowed to remain until the rains commence, in November and December. The Steeles came here about nine years ago, and rented this ranch of seventeen thousand acres for six thousand dollars per annum, with the privilege of purchasing all south of the Gazos Creek for six dollars per acre. The ranch was granted under the Mexican Republic to old Captain Graham, a Cherokee Indian half-breed, formerly a Rocky Mountain trapper. He had no business tact, and old age and aguardiente combined had completely unfitted him for carrying on this estate, and the still larger and more valuable one known as Seyante, near Santa Cruz. Mortgages and lawsuits eat it all up, and it passed out of his hands for the beggarly sum of twenty thousand dollars. It was considered one of the most barren and unattractive localities on the coast, but the Steeles saw its capabilities, and settled upon it. They soon purchased seven thousand acres of the land in the vicinity of their present homes, and went into the dairy business on a large scale. Others imitated their success on a smaller scale, and there are now over fifteen hundred cows on the ranch. These are fed only on the native "wild oats," which in place of grass cover all the open country of California, but with proper effort vegetables could be raised, to double the milk-producing capacity of the
