116 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



UPtN W UUULA.MJ IVPE. 



THE BARE ROCK PINNACLES IN BACKGROUND MAKE FIELD EXAMINATION OF THE GRAZING EXAM- 

 INERS DIFFICULT. 



say an increase fo 10 to 25 per cent in 

 the carrying capacity of the ranges. An 

 increase of 5 pounds per lamb for 5,000,- 

 000 lambs would mean 25 ,000,000 pounds 

 added to the sheepmen's salable product 

 and the country's meat supply. 



THE CASE OF THE MADISON FOREST. 



The best example of what has been 

 accomplished in the way of adopting this 

 system is perhaps the Madison Forest. 

 With perhaps one or two minor excep- 

 tions the sheep on this Forest are 

 handled without returning to one camp 

 more than two nights In 1912 the 

 Supervisor submitted figures and state- 

 ments from sheepmen showing that the 

 advantage of this method over the old 

 method of retiiming to bed grounds was 

 from 5 to 15 pounds difference in the 

 lambs, with a corresponding difference 

 in the condition of the ewes. Sheepmen 

 established this advantage to be from 

 20 cents to 50 cents a head on the sheep. 

 In 1913 we planned to get an experi- 

 mental comparison of sheep handled 

 under the new system and sheep handled 

 under the old system on the Madison 

 Forest. When the test came the 

 Supervisor could not get any permittee 

 to retiim to the old system for experi- 

 mental purposes without paying a bonus 



of 50 cents a head. One permittee 

 finally consented to return to the old 

 system provided he were allowed 100 

 head of sheep free of charge in addition 

 to his permit. A total of seven bands 

 were carefully observed during the 

 season, the acreage of range used by 

 each band was mapped and compared, 

 and lambs in each band were weighed 

 and marked at the beginning of the 

 season and again weighed at the close 

 of the season to determine growth. The 

 average gain per day of the lambs imder 

 the new system was .43 pounds as 

 compared with .38 pounds made by 

 lambs under the old system, a net gain 

 of .05 per day per head in favor of the 

 new system. At 5 cents a pound this 

 difference amoimted to 223^ cents per 

 head for a period of 90 days. On a band 

 of sheep containing 1,000 lambs, there- 

 fore, it would amount to $225 during 

 the grazing season of 90 days ; in addition 

 the difference in condition of the lambs 

 would probably resiilt in a higher price 

 for the better lambs raised imder the 

 new system. 



This change in method of handling has 

 been, in large part, responsible for the 

 building up of the Madison Forest and 

 enabling us to incresae the number of 

 sheep grazed from 90,000 head to 107,- 



