California Cowboy Eben Mcmillan 21 June 1963 We were up, had breakfast, were loaded out and at the Reyes River Ranch in Santa Barbara Canyon, in Cuyama Valley, by 7:15 A.M. District Ranger Ed. Morse from the Cuyama Office of U.S. Forest Service, came with saddles and camp gear and accompanied by Kern County Supervisor, Vance Webb of Taft, Calif., Robt. Marshall, Crocker-Anglo Bank Manager of [illegible] Branch Office in Taft, California and John Holman of Cuyama, California, an employee of the Richfield Oil Company who represented, understood, the Sportsman Council of Central Calif. Ranger Morris opened the lock gate and we proceeded to the Top of the Sierra Madre Range where Ranger Morris, representing the U.S. Forest Service, showed us plots of brush he is having removed in a land development plan he is personally planning and supervising in co-operation with the Stock People who are helping in this Project by constructing fences around these cleared and seeded areas. These cleared areas are not large, probably comprising not more than a total acreage of 100 acres. Clearing the brush from these areas cost the U.S. Government 25 dollars per acre which is quite cheap, Ranger Morse told us, as the contractor who did the job lost money on the job and is planning on charging fifteen to twenty dollars more per acre for clearing brush for any additional acreage. Planting of these cleared acreages runs to about ten dollars per acre. These costs will bring the expense of developing into grazing, an acre of this land, to about seventy five dollars. This would not include U.S. Government Personnel expenses, such as surveying- planning-automotive and road maintenance. Most of the soils being developed here are shallow and marginal. Humus in these cleared areas is mostly the result of chaparral deposition that's saturation point is quite low. One hillside, near the road, that had been cleared and sowed to grass showed results of severe erosion, even though the soil still held much brush and shrub residue. Ranger Morse said the ranchers, or stockmen, who leased from the Forest Service in the Cuyama