Page 59 - LLR-Exploration II

February 1870 San Francisco Commercial Herald

…the Steele Brothers are the largest owners of milk cows in California; their entire herd, kept in two
different counties, amounts to about 1,400. Of this number, they keep 750 subdivided into five
dairies, at Pescadero, San Mateo County, and a like number on an extensive tract of land owned by Notes:
them in San Luis Obispo County, near the town of that name. They make only cheese, the article _________________
produced at these dairies ranking deservedly high in the San Francisco market, and always _________________
commanding the highest prices averaging the year through about seventeen cents per pound. These _________________
cows consist of American crossed with English breeds, with a slight mixture of native stock, and are
superior milkers, between 500 and 600 pounds of cheese being made from each animal yearly. They _________________
are found to be hardy, docile, and easily kept, subsiding chiefly on the native grasses and herbage of _________________
the county. In special cases stall feeding is resorted to, and in seasons of extreme drought, or during _________________
cold rains, some grain and fodder—the latter in the shape of hay or straw— is given to such animals
as most require it. _________________
_________________
… there are also considerable patches of marshy land on the San Luis Obispo estate, on which the
grass remains verdant, renewing itself throughout the year. At this place, too, large quantities of _________________
barley are grown, some of which is fed to the stock when needed, the most of it being used to fatten _________________
the swine, a large number of which are raised annually. In milking, eighteen or twenty cows are
assigned to a hand; the laborers employed all being white men, to each of whom about thirty dollars _________________
per month, with keep, is paid. _________________

The firm owns about 15,000 acres of land at Pescadero, and about 45,000 at San Luis Obispo, the _________________
greater portion of it gently undulating, or but slightly hilly, and of excellent soil, being capable of _________________
producing good crops of grain, as well as indigenous grasses. It is well watered with springs and
streams, and is timbered with scattered oaks and timbered dells, presenting landscapes of great _________________
beauty. In the enclosure of this land, some fifty or sixty miles of board fence has been erected, at a _________________
cost of more than $500 a mile. At each dairy, suitable buildings for carrying on the business of ________________
cheese-making and quartering the men, have been put up; the entire expenditure incurred by these
parties, on account of the land and stock purchases, improvements made, defending titles, etc.
having been more than half a million of dollars; the present value of the property, all told, being now
perhaps three times the amount.

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