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 State they have a greater variety of land, and do this more easily.

The average of southern wool brings less by five or six cents per pound than that of the Sacramento Valley; and this is due in part to the soil and climate, and in part to the fact that sheep are more carefully kept in the northern part of the State.
Many of the sheep farmers in the Sacramento Valley have entirely done away with the mischievous practice of corraling their sheep--confining them at night, I mean, in narrow, crowded quarters--a practice which makes and keeps the sheep scabby.

They very generally fence 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 Colonel Hollester, Colonel Diblee, Dr.Flint, and a few others in the South, who, like these, have exceptionally fine ranges, keep always the best sheep in the best manner.

But smaller tracks, sown to alfalfa, are found to pay in the valleys where the land can be irrigated.
In Australia and New Zealand sheep inspectors are appointed, who have the duty to examine flocks and force the isolation of scabby sheep; and a careless flock-master who should be discovered 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 Valley who assured me that they had eradicated scab so entirely from their flocks that they dealt also by isolation with such few single specimens as they found to have this disease.
Moreover, I find that the best sheep farmers aim to keep, not the largest flocks, but the best sheep.