NOTES AND COMMENT 



The utilization of the national forests as grazing grounds has assumed 

 an importance which is very great even in comparison with the primary 

 purpose of these forests. The necessities of the last two years have 

 made it desirable to stock the areas under government control as 

 heavily as possible without endangering their future value. The 

 methods by which the ranges are controlled, and the complex problem 

 of utilizing the natural crop of forage without destroying its ability to 

 recover, have received extended treatment by James T. Jardine and 

 Mark Anderson in a recent bulletin of the Agricultural Department 

 (No. 790). 



The deleterious effects of overgrazing have been avoided by a. care- 

 ful regulation of the number of cattle or sheep allowed to graze on a 

 given area, and by a careful fixing of the periods during which the range 

 is utilized, especially with respect to keeping animals off in the early 

 spring. The careful locating of salting places has been found to result 

 in a better distribution of the stock over large areas, and has resulted, 

 in some cases, in making it possible to increase the number of cattle 

 by 25% in a four year period. 



All of the methods by which overgrazing is detected, and by which 

 the capacity of the range is estimated and its condition determined 

 from time to time, afford one of the most noteworthy cases in which a 

 valuable practical application has been made of some of the findings 

 of plant ecology. Little is said by Jardine and Anderson about the 

 effects of grazing on forest reproduction, a matter which is quite as 

 important as the perpetuation of the range itself, and is well known to 

 be receiving its due share of attention. 



Grape growing is the subject of a new Rural Mannal issued by the 

 Macmillan Company under the authorship of Professor U. P. Hedrick 

 of the Experiment Station at Geneva, New York. The book describes 

 the propagation, pruning, training and diseases of the grape, the manage- 

 ment of vineyards, the methods of making grape juice and raisins, and 

 some historically interesting matter relative to the making of wines. 

 The leading American varieties of grapes are described and illustrated. 



148 



