17 



near the larger settlements. Owing to the light rainfall during the 

 summer and autumn the native grasses cured on the ground in such 

 excellent condition that little if any hay or grain was necessary to 

 Citrry the stock through the winter, and the rancher preferred to buy 

 imported flour and canned fruits and vegetables than to bother about 

 farming. 



Upon the advent of the recent series of dry seasons it soon became 

 evident that the ranges were too heavily stocked. Ranchmen were 

 forced to provide forage for their stock in order to carry it through the 

 winter. This has led to the fencing of hay meadows and the cultiva- 

 tion of alfalfa, timothy, and other hay and forage crops. But this 

 made stock raising more expensive and forced many of the large con- 

 cerns to go out of business. Then, too, as irrigatiou began to be 

 practiced it soon became evident that many portions of the region were 

 adapted to general farming, and settlers began to take up the land 

 along the streams and to i)lant it to crojjs of various kinds. This 

 interfered with the methods of ranging stock practiced on the large 

 ranches, and the stockmen were forced to reduce their herds or seek new 

 ranges. Very often it was found to be more profitable to divide the 

 big ranch into small holdings and sell or rent to farmers and small 

 ranchmen than to continue in the stock business. 



In many instances the stockmen owned but little, or noue, of the land 

 over which their stock grazed, and their improvements were of little 

 value. In other cases large tracts of land had been purchased or 

 leased and considerable sums of money expended in building fences 

 and making other improvements. As the country has become more and 

 more settled, the former class has largely disappeared. The ranches 

 of the latter class have either accommodated themselves to the changed 

 conditions and developed into the large successfully conducted stock- 

 growing establishments of to-day or have given way entirely to the 

 smaller ranch and farm, where a combination of stock raising and croo 

 growing is practiced. 



This changed condition of things is very apparent in northern Wyo- 

 ming, where in many places the land of the valleys has recently been 

 brought under irrigation and affords fine crops of wheat, oats, rye, 

 barley, early corn, timothy, clover, redtop, and alfalfa. On the Gray 

 Bull River and elsewhere in the Big Horn Basin the change has been 

 brought about largely within the past five or ten years. Instead of 

 the large herds, controlled by a«comparatively few wealthy men or by 

 stock companies, the tendency is toward the smaller herds of the indi- 

 vidual rancher. Instead of depending so largely upon the Southwest 

 for young cattle the ranchmen are beginning to raise more young stock 

 themselves, and they are beginning to handle better-bred animals and 

 to bring them to a marketable condition at an earlier age. 



One of the most pressing needs of this region is a hay plant that Avill 

 endure the dry weather and afibrd profitable yields. In localities where 

 20013— No. 12 2 



