The rainfall on the Tahoe Reserve averages about fifty inches annually, the most frequent rains occurring between October and May.  Necessarily there is much snow-fall on the higher regions.  Further down the snow disappears in the early spring, say March, but in the upper altitudes it remains until late June, with perpetual snow in the sheltered portions of the topmost peaks.

Agriculture, owing to the average high altitude, is a negligible industry in the Reserve, little more being done than to raise a little fruit, grain and vegetables, mainly for home consumption.  Naturally there is a fair amount of grazing, almost the whole area of the Reserve being used for this purpose during the summer months.  Many portions of meadow-land are used for dairy-herds, most of the hotels and resorts on and near Lake Tahoe having their own herds and meadows.  Bands of beef-cattle are also pastured, together with large bands of sheep, the two kinds of stock often grazing in common, the cattle using the meadows and the sheep the ridges and timber-lands.  In taking the trail-rides described in other chapters I invariably came across both cattle and sheep, and all the near-by meadows are occupied by the dairy-herds belonging to the hotels.  Patented lands of private ownership within the bounds of the Forest are often also leased to cattle- and sheep-men.  Last year it was estimated that there were 47,000 head of sheep, and about 6000 head of cattle on the Reserve.  Under the protection of the rangers grazing conditions are rapidly improving, the cattle- and sheep-men being held strictly to certain rules laid down by the Supervisor.  Systematic efforts are made to rid the Forest, as far as possible, of predatory animals that kill the sheep, also of poisonous plants which render grazing dangerous.

There are far less cattle on the Sierra ranges in the Tahoe region than there are sheep.  During the summer most of the mountain valleys have their great sheep-bands.  Many are brought over from Nevada, and far more from the Sacramento Valley and other regions near the Pacific.  The feed, as a rule, is good and abundant from the time the snow leaves until the end of September or even later.  Though the year 1913 was the third dry season (comparatively speaking) the region had suffered, I found a score or more of meadows in my rambles around Tahoe, where thousands of sheep might have had rich and abundant pasture.

But well may John Muir dislike sheep in his beloved Sierras, and term them in his near-to-hatred “the locusts of the mountains.”  When the most fertile valley has been “fed off” by sheep, or they have “bedded down” night after night upon it, it takes some time before the young growth comes up again.

It is the custom when the lambing season is over, and the lambs are strong enough to travel and old enough to ship, to move to some convenient point on the railway, where there is an abundance of feed and water on the way, and there ship either to Reno, Carson and Virginia City, or to some market on the Pacific Coast.  Hence overland travelers on the Southern Pacific trains are often surprised to see vast flocks of sheep and hear the bleating of the lambs at unlooked for stations at the highest points of the Sierra Nevada, as at Soda Springs, Cisco, Emigrant Gap, Blue Canyon, or sidings on the way.