68 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



large scale is now centered in the regions where climatic conditions 

 are most favorable. Elsewhere the work is primarily experimental — 

 to discover the methods which will permit the difficult work to be 

 accomplished most successfully and at least cost. Facilities for 

 gathering the seed needed for direct sowing and in the nurseries 

 were increased and the cost of seed extraction was markedly cheap- 

 ened. Nearly 50,000 pounds of clean seed were collected, at an 

 average cost of $1.G8 per pound. It was established that the best 

 results are secured when seed from the region in which the trees 

 are to be grown is used. 



PROGRESS IN RANGE MANAGEMENT. 



With a somewhat smaller area under grazing administration than 

 in 1911, the number of animals grazing under permit was very 

 materially increased. This is mainly the result of the improvement 

 in range conditions which regulated grazing has brought about. 

 Not only the range but also forest growths and waterflows have been 

 benefited. Efforts were continued to bring into use range hitherto 

 unutilized because inaccessible. In northeastern Washington, north- 

 ern Idaho, and northwestern Montana, especially, much forage is now 

 going to waste which better shipping facilities will make it possible 

 to utilize; negotiations which have been undertaken with the rail- 

 roads promise a favorable solution of this problem. Through the 

 construction of improvements for the control of the movements of 

 stock and to make water available for them, through continued study 

 of the forage resource and of the modifications which it undergoes 

 in the different forms of use, through determination of the kind of 

 stock to which each part of the range is best adapted and adjusting 

 use accordingly, and through stock protection against losses by 

 contagious diseases, poisonous plants, and the depredations of wild 

 animals, the work of past years was continued and extended. 



Range management aims at maximum forage production, improved 

 methods of utilizing the forage resource, and development of the 

 stock industry along the lines most beneficial to the community. To 

 secure from the range its largest economic returns to the stock in- 

 dustry in profits and to the country in meat supplies, wool, and 

 hides, intensive methods of range utilization must be devised and 

 adopted. Much of the foundation work for the development of 

 such methods has now been done. With diminution both of the 

 extent and of the carrying power of the open range, the problem 

 of producing the beef and mutton which an increasing population 

 must have has become serious. There is a growing tendency to 

 remove stock from the unreserved lands to the forest ranges. The 

 advance of settlement and the rapid appropriation of the choicest 



