38 



low mountainous ridges lying between the rivers, the bulk of the lands 

 are level or gently rolling. 



The entire region lying north of the Colorado and Concho rivers is 

 well grassed and watered and is not overrun to such an extent by the 

 mesquite beau and prickly pear as are the ranges farther to the south- 

 ward. The chief pest and the one which causes the greatest destruc. 

 tion of grasses is the prairie dog, which, according to stockmen, is 

 rapidly increasing in numbers, so that in some places the carrying 

 capacity has diminished fully 50 per cent within less than ten years 



from this cause alone. This 

 portion of the State, to- 

 gether with the Staked 

 Plains, was formerly the 

 winter feeding ground of a 

 large part of the great south- 

 ern herd of buffalo, and it is 

 the portion which benefited 

 most during the ten years 

 immediately succeeding the 

 destruction of the buffalo. 

 The rainfall at Abilene, 

 which may betaken asacen- 

 tral point from east to west, 

 averages about 27 inches 

 per year, although there 

 has been a variation of from 

 11 to 35 inches during a 

 series of twenty-live years. 

 The rainfall of the region 

 as a whole is' probably be- 

 tween 20 and 30 inches, 

 placing it within the cate- 

 gory of semiarid sections. 

 During average years cere- 

 als and cotton may be suc- 

 cessfully grown, but the 

 whole area is liable to suffer from severe droughts in off years, during 

 which no dependence can be placed ui)on any of the cultivated crops. 

 Such semiarid countries, no matter where they exist, can best be utilized 

 in pasturing live stock, and the live-stock interests will always be the 

 most important ones, even thongh certain of the more fertile valleys are 

 converted into farm lands. The carrying capacity of the land here was 

 formerly ecjual to the best. It is estimated that in IbSO the average for 

 this whole region could not have been much loss than 100 head per square 

 mile, while picked sections would carry 320 head. Now it has been 

 reduced to between 40 and 50 head, a fall of fully 50 per cent in the 

 producing value of the land in the course of less than twenty years. 



Fig. 6.— Needle grass {Aristida fasciculata) . 



