The Spanish and Mexican law does not know a fee-simple title,--in the meaning of the U. S. laws it is a grant of perpetual lease, on some conditions. To suit its own practice, the American government should recognize the titles as it finds them in the country by giving the proprietors a fee-simple title, after its own fashion, on the top of the former one by which the land was held. The Spanish and Mexican governments were liberal in giving facilities to acquire land, particularly in California. It was a common practice of the Mexican government that when a foreigner married a native he was recognized as a citizen, and by applying, could obtain a grant of land for a grazing farm of from a league to four leagues, or sometimes even more. As a general rule, the largest grazing farm that could have been granted under Mexican government, consisted of eleven leagues; there are, however, individuals that possess as many as thirty and forty leagues of land. Such large possessions are open to suspicion in regard to their being legal possessions, and into such the American government may inquire with more justice, as they are larger than even the necessities of California farmer’s life could require. But small proprietors cannot have more than is absolutely necessary to their maintenance. The landed possessions in California may be arranged into three categories, which sprang very naturally from the system of the colonization of the country. There are Mission lands, _Pueblo_ lands and _ranchos_, as they are called here, but in better Spanish they would be called _haciendas_, and in plain English, grazing farmlands of private individuals.