Historical Backgrounds of Range Land Use in California

While accounts of contemporary Historical Backgrounds of Range Land Use travelers are of great value in giv- ing us an appraisal of the general in California nature of the forage cover at the time California was being settled L. T. BURCHAM they afford few details of its bo- Senior Forest Technician, Ccrlifomia Division of Forestry, tanical composition or floristic Sawamento, California. characteristics. It is to early bo- tanical collections that we must In the year 1769 a group of Pedro Fages said: “For flocks and turn for these details. They range Spaniards was riding northward herds there are excellent places all the way from fragmentary col- from San Diego, through the Coast with plenty of water and abun- lections such as those of the Ranges, in search of the Port of dance of pasture” (Fages, 1937). Beechey voyage to the more com- Monterey. Members of that party, At San Luis Obispo, he wrote, prehensive work of the Pacific an expedition led by Don Gaspar “Abundant water is found in every railroad surveys (Hooker and Ar- de Portola, were the first Euro- direction, and pasture for the cat- nott, 1841; Torrey, 1856). In a peans to gain any extensive, accu- tle, so that no matter how large sense early plant collections are rate knowledge of California. On the mission grows to be . the quite disappointing to a range Tuesday, July 18, 1769, one of land promises sustenance” (Fages, man. They were made almost these men, Miguel Costanso, wrote : 1937). But perhaps none of these wholly to serve taxonomic or other “The place where we halted was accounts excelled the simple elo- special purposes; they are chiefly exceedingly beautiful and pleasant, quence of Fray Juan Crespi, who records of occurrence, yielding but a valley remarkable for its size, wrote : “There is much land and meager information as to relative adorned with groves of trees, and good pasture” (Engelhardt, 1920), abundance and area1 distribution covered with the finest pasture . .” of species. Nor do they ordinarily The Spaniards did not occupy (Constan&, 1911). Later, he said : include introduced plants which much of the Central Valley, or the “We then proceeded over high shortly had so profound an effect Sierra Nevada-Cascade country. hills, and through canyons contain- on the forage of some localities. The best early records of those re- ing very good soil and good pas- gions are in journals of American Historical Resum6 : The Livestock ture. .” These statements struck and Canadian fur trappers, who Industry of California a keynote that was echoed by early traveled here extensively after the Ranching had its beginning as travelers throughout California, first quarter of the nineteenth cen- the first industry in California in who uniformly were favorably im- tury. Jedediah Smith was inter- 1769 when the Franciscan mission- pressed with the potentialities of ested primarily in trapping bea- aries brought cattle and horses the country for livestock grazing. vers. But he observed that there from Lower California to the mis- The Pristine Ranges of C,alifornia was feed for his horses in the lower son being founded at San Diego. Early travelers in California San Joaquin Valley when he wrote, Provision for establishing a herd were, for the most part, sturdy, on February 12, 1828 : “The win- of livestock was an important ele- experienced, and practical men- ter in this valley is the best season ment in the founding of every mis- explorers, trappers, traders-who for grass . the whole face of the sion. Meat was necessary for sub- viewed the countryside with an country is a beautiful green, re- sistence of the mission community, eye to its ability to supply their sembling a flourishing wheat field” while hides and tallow furnished immediate needs, and with regard (Sullivan, 1934). In 1833, John raw materials essential in local to its potentialities for settlement. Work was marooned at Marysville economy. Long before the discov- A great many of them had reason Buttes by seasonal floods of Sac- ery of gold-even before cereals to give close attention to the for- ramento River, with a party of 163 planted by the colonists yielded de- age resource : either directly as a persons and some 400 horses. On pendable harvests-the forage on source of feed for the animals February 22 he noted: “We have the hills had begun to form the which transported and fed them; been a month here and could not basis of a reliable economy. or indirectly, as a possible means have fallen on a better place. Additional settlements followed of livelihood through grazing of There was excellent feeding for San Diego in rapid succession. By livestock. t,he horses . .” (Maloney, 1945). 1823 there was a chain of 21 mis- The Spaniards, whose activities Edwin Bryant described the coun- sions stretching from San Diego to were confined principally to the try southeast of Sacramento as a Sonoma; presidios had been estab- region west of the San Joaquin level plain covered with luxuriant lished at four strategic spots along Valley and south of San Francisco, grasses, and said that in the bot- the coast. As colonizing agents of left ,voluminous records of their tom lands along Mokelumne River the Spanish government, missions first impressions of this country. the rich soil produced the finest were not intended to be permanent, Of the mission lands at San Diego, qualities of grasses (Bryant, 1848). nor was their establishment accom- 81 82 IJ. T. BURCHAM panied by any conveyance of land Acquisition of California by the dead cattle by the hundreds” from the crown to the mission. United States occurred almost si- (Brewer, 1949). R’esults of this Under both Spanish and Mexican multaneously with the discovery of drought were so drastic that cattle governments missions were per- gold. Almost overnight a prodigi- production on a speculative basis mitted to occupy and use certain ous market for meat was created- was permanently curbed in Cal- lands for the benefit of the In- on the very doorstep of the Califor- ifornia. But it had beneficial as- dians : in theory, when the In- nia rancher. The spectacular live- pects ; many ranchers realized they dians had been Christianized and stock boom which marked the dec- no longer could depend solely on civilized mission settlements were ade that followed was a natural range feed for production of live- to become pueblos (towns) (Rob- outgrowth of the Gold Rush. The stock and began to plant alfalfa inson, 1948 ) . The missions soon seemingly insatiable demand for and other forage crops to supple- extended their occupation of land meat in mining camps, and in ment natural vegetation, thereby so that boundaries of one tended such mushrooming metropolitan laying a firmer foundation for the to coincide with the next, despite centers as San Francisco, Sacra- range industry. Many ranchers now the fact that much intervening mento and Stockton furnished the shifted their interest to sheep, be- land was not in actual use. Ulti- incentive. Ranchers sent their lieving these animals were better mately, missions asserted claim to stock to markets in northern Cal- suited to the semi-arid climatic a major part of all lands in the ifornia in drives comparable in eco- conditions. By 1870, cattle num- coastal strip from Sonoma south- nomic significance and picturesque bers had decreased to less than ward, embracing about one-sixth detail to those over the Abilene half a million head, while the sheep of the total area of the state. At Trail of Kansas (Cleland, 1941). population had risen above 2.7 its height this mission-dominated Nor could the demand for meat be million animals. pastoral empire probably con- satisfied by local production. Large As permanent settlement of the trolled in excess of 400,000 head herds were driven from Texas, state proceeded increased emphasis of cattle and 300,000 sheep (Gor- Mexico, Arizona and New Mexico, was placed on farming, large don, 1883 ) . while more than 150,000 head of tracts of fertile valley land being Ranching was not a prerogative cattle entered the state from the diverted from range use to crop of the missions. Livestock soon Middle West during the years 1852 production. The pastoral industry were acquired by soldiers and set- and 1853 (Cleland, 1941; Samp- shifted to grassland and woodland tlers of the frontier establishment. son, 1952). ranges of the foothills, and to pla- In 1784, Governor Fages submit- In spite of the enormous demand teau and mountain areas not gen- ted to his superiors in Mexico the for meat, and of droughts which erally tillable, where it has become first petition concerning private created serious shortages of range relatively stabilized. use of land for ranching in Califor- feed during the late 1850’s, the Major Factors Affecting the nia; it came from one Juan Jose cattle population increased from Range Resource Dominguez “who was a soldier in about a quarter of a million ani- the presidio of San Diego and who mals in 1850 to nearly one million Nearly two centuries of use have at this moment has four herds of head by 1860; sheep increased by vastly altered the range resource mares and about 200 head of cattle nearly 1.1 million head (U. S. Cen- of California from the pristine on the river below San Gabriel” sus Office, 1853 ; 1864). The higher condition seen by Spanish pioneers. (Cleland, 1941). At least thirty livestock population of the early What we see today is the result of concessions of land for ranching- 1860’s coincided with a marked interaction of many factors oper- nearly all to veterans-were made slackening in demand for meat ; ating during the course of our during the Spanish period, ending reduction in sales meant more range use history.

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