doc241 - Schoenherr Home Page in Sunny Chula Vista

del Rey, or Ranch of the King. Their grain-fields were located at the Soledad, twelve
miles up the coast. This latter valley was treated as the commons of the San Diego military
establishment, and, later, of the Pueblo. The land was not divided into individual
holdings, but farmed in common. A man cultivating a plot one year had the option of doing
so the next season, an arrangement which continued until a short time before the
Mexican War.
Agriculture never acquired any great importance in all the years of Spanish and
Mexican dominion. True, there is a record of grain exports in 1817, as already noted,
and this is evidence of progress when it is remembered that it had formerly been necessary
to import this staple from Mexico; but the exports never reached an important
stage. The easy-going inhabitants were well content if they produced enough to meet
their own needs, and their methods and implements were ridiculously crude. Until the
Americans came, there were no plows in the country except those made of the fork of a
tree shod with a flat piece of iron. Grain was cut with a short sickle, and horses threshed
it with their hoofs.
But while the agricultural experience was a hard struggle from the beginning, the
livestock industry was rapidly developed without encountering any difficulties worth
mentioning. It involved but little labor, and that little was of a kind admirably suited to the
Spanish disposition, for it could be done mostly on horseback with long intervals of rest
between the periods of activity. The pasturage was usually excellent and the cattle took
care of themselves and multiplied prodigiously. The Mission Fathers were, of course,
also the fathers of the cattle business. It was not until the community acquired a population
apart from that sheltered by the Presidio and the Mission that private herds began
to appear, but the success of the Fathers inevitably attracted others into the profitable
business of raising cattle on free pastures.
The Spaniards were lovers of horses and had them in such plenty that it was frequently
necessary to slaughter them in order to prevent serious interference with the
cattle industry. The Californians--a term which described the whole resident population
of Spanish or Mexican blood--were noted for their horsemanship, yet they seem to have
taken no pains to breed good stock. This they might easily have done, for they had
good Arabian stock to start with, and doubtless the horse might
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have become an important item for export. With the exception of a few shiploads sent to
the Sandwich Islands in early days, this opportunity seems to have been neglected.
There were a few sheep in early times, but they never grew into large flocks--perhaps
because they required more care than the Californians were willing to give them, or because
the Californians were not fond of mutton.
The pioneer ship in the hide trade between New England and California was the
Sachem of Boston, which first came to the coast in 1822. Her Captain was Henry Gyzelaar,
while the supercargo was William A. Gale, a man of considerable note. He had
been engaged in the California fur trade, and his glowing report of the resources and
possibilities of the country was very influential in developing a fleet of trading ships and
giving California its first boom. The Boston merchants who became interested included
Bryant & Sturgis, Trot, Bumstead & Son, and W. B. Sweet. The important San Francisco
firms engaged in this trade at the time were J. C. Jones, and Paty, McKinlay & Co. Captain
Henry D. Fitch, the first great merchant of San Diego, was a member of the latter