Unlike many of the counties of California, Marin, during the gold period, attracted very little attention among the miners. Her chief, and, in fact, only industry in those days was the raising of stock. About the year 1860 the people in the northern part of the County, especially in the Tomales district, located on the eastern part of upper Tomales Bay, began growing potatoes with such successful results that the County soon gained the name of an unusually fertile potato-raising region. Although stock, potato-raising, and dairying are still continued in a small degree in the vicinity of Tomales, the chicken industry is gradually superseding them, and the success attending this latest departure portends well for the future of this section. The small ranches, which formerly were most all incumbered with one or more mortgages, are now being cleared, and the general aspect for the small rancher is greatly improved. Poultry raising as conducted under the present modern system is vastly superior to anything of its kind in former years. Some idea of the dimensions of this industry were gained during a recent visit made by the author to one of these modern poultry farms. The ranch was of average size, and in the neat yards inclosed by high wire fences I saw some thirteen hundred laying hens, while eight hundred pullets for the market, all graded as to age, were in various yards. [Illustration: Feeding Time.] From this ranch between five and six cases of eggs are shipped every week, each case containing thirty-six dozen; averaging two hundred and seventy-five cases or thirty thousand eggs per year. In the laying season over seven hundred eggs are gathered daily. [Illustration: Chicken Ranches in Marin.] The multitudinous, airy, white-washed hen houses in the numerous, cleanly, sunny inclosures; the fields of grain raised for the fowls' consumption; the incubator room and the adjoining brooder; the granary, from which at stated periods the food is measured, are all adjuncts of the modern poultry ranch. It is interesting to watch the great flocks of fowl, all snowy white (the white leghorn being preferred), darting noisily toward the attendant as he enters their enclosure at feeding-time, and the ensuing scramble for wheat, and the continuous pick-pick-pick verily make the hen a definition for perpetual motion--in feeding-time, at least. As but five acres of ground are necessary to carry on successfully a moderate size chicken ranch, it may be seen how with less outlay and incident expenses the small rancher can make better profits in this industry than in dairying. [Illustration: Defacing Nature.] West of Tomales Bay a long narrow neck of land stretches far out into the Pacific. Though somewhat barren in appearance, owing to the dearth of trees and the abundance of low, tangled sagebrush, the fact that grass grows the entire year on its slopes makes Point Reyes the famous dairying center of Marin.