22 



QUALITY OF FORAGE. 



The quality of forage, as Judged by results, is of the best. Horses, 

 cattle, and sheep do well. If the winters are not too severely cold nor 

 the snow too deep, all kinds of stock not only subsist upon these plants 

 but actually remain in good Hesh throughout the winter. Of the 

 grasses that cure upon the ground the Wheat-grasses are the most 

 abundant, and these have long been known to possess high nutritive 

 value. It is, however, the shrubby vegetation that furnishes the larg- 

 est amount of valuable feed. Such plants are much more succulent 

 than appearances would indicate. (Irowing on strongly saline or alka- 

 line soils, the Salt-sages and many other plants take up these salts in 

 such quantity that one readily detects them on tasting even a small 

 fragment of a leaf. 



Stock feeding upon such plants secures the necessary amount of salt 

 from the food, so that the salting of stock that must be resorted to dur- 

 ing the mouths when the animals are feeding upon the mountain grasses 

 is wholly unnecessary. 



MEANS FOR IMPROVEMENT OF THE FORAGE. 



How to improve the quality and increase the quantity of available 

 forage in the Red Desert is a most diflicult problem. The soil condi- 

 tions and water su])ply are such that not much may be hoped for 

 through the expenditure of ordinary effort and means for the desert 

 as a whole. Nor will any sudden or spasmodic ettbrt suflice. Only 

 forces and plans operating for a number of years can be expected to 

 give noticeably great results. 



It is very evident, however, that the forces now at work are tending 

 toward improvement. According to the most reliable sheep men the 

 same areas that twenty years ago would only support one sheep will 

 now better support from tliree to live. This they attribute, to gain 

 in the strength of the soil due to the accumulating manure. It seems 

 probable that a more potent factor i.s found in the following: The 

 vegetation chiefly depended upon for forage is composed of the large 

 number of small shrubs of many kinds previously mentioned. The cut- 

 ting down to the ground of such vegetation enormously increases the 

 number of annual shoots. From winter to winter this shrubby vegeta- 

 tion has l)een browsed down (doser and closer to the woody bases of 

 the plants, until now the tender annual shoots are produced in much 

 greater abundance. The effectiveness of this browsing is, of course, 

 dependent ui)on the region being used as a winter pasture only, giv- 

 ing time for growth and recovery each summer. 



Something can (;ertaiidy be done in a small but eftective way in the 

 vicinity of those ranches that are now found within tlie region, or such 

 as may yet be located. Salt-sages or other alkali-enduring vegetation, 

 if the ground be seeded to them, can be made to yield much more 



