the efforts of Baron Ferdinand von Mueller of Melbourne. Some ten 

 or more years ago, large quantities of seed were collected and sent by 

 him to South Africa, and the world now beholds the anomalous state 

 of affairs of Australian farmers buying Australian saltbush seed from 

 South Africa. 



GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS. 



Many, if not all, of the American Atriplex and Chenojoodiiim species, espe- 

 cially those that are natives of the great ranges, will become extinct along 

 with some of our best pasture grasses, if an effort is not made to conserve 

 and disseminate them. We know that they are valuable. We know that 

 they are eaten by all kinds of stock. 

 We know that they are thoroughly 

 acclimated. They grow on the 

 alkali plains, along the margins 

 of brackish ponds, and on sterile 

 lands. They are perfectly adapted 

 to situations where better forage 

 plants and grasses will not grow. 

 They are natives of the vast arid and 

 semiarid uplands, which through 

 absence of water will never be used 

 for anything but cattle and sheep 

 ranges. They are better fitted to 

 soil and climatic conditions as they 

 now exist with us, and they are 

 less liable to become weeds in culti- 

 vated lands. Saltbushes are valu- 

 able only as supplementary forage 

 plants. They will not take the 

 place of grasses for continuous 

 pasturage. When mixed with 

 native grasses of a range, they act 

 as a bitter tonic to increase the 

 appetite- and improve the general 

 condition of the grazing animals. 

 But there is sufficient nourishment 

 in them to sustain life when through 

 drought or other causes there is no 

 grass. 



The preservation of our native 

 The introduction of foreign ones should be secondary. There is al)un- 

 dant proof for the statement that the plants native to any soil or any 

 climate are better suited and better adapted to that particular location 

 than plants from another climate or that grew on anotlier kind of soil. 

 The American species of sweet sage and winter fat are thoroughly accli- 

 mated, and the seed can be readily and cheaply procured. We do not 

 need to send to Australia or to South Africa or to Argentina to find 

 forage plants that will grow on alkaline soil. 



The indiscriminate introduction of new plants into any country is 

 always fraught with danger, especially when such plants are of a known 

 weedy character. The Russian thistle belongs to the same plant family 

 as the Australian saltbush. This- weed in its early stage furnishes 



Fig 



3.—" Winter fat," or sweet sage. (Buro- 

 tia lanata.) Abundant from Montana to 

 Arizona. 



forage plants is of first importance. 



