APPLIED ECOLOGY 337 



obvious desirability for adjusting control to these natural fluctua- 

 tions. Other suggested ecological problems are the relationship of 

 rodents to reseeding, succession, and climax in range land, and 

 their numbers and effects upon orchards when managed with 

 cover crops. 



Weeds.— The occurrence of weeds as a result of land use and 

 their control by cultural practices have received far less attention 

 than control by direct, aggressive means. Yet cultural control or 

 control as a result of good land management is likely to be the 

 most permanent and least costly. Certainly the weed problem has 

 not been reduced by centuries of cultivation, mowing, and burn- 

 ing. Even modern ''hormone" sprays are no panacea. 208 If progress 

 is to be made, the autecology of the principal weed species must 

 be studied in detail. If, then, the effects of various types of land 

 use and management upon the occurrence of specific weed species 

 is learned, there is a reasonable possibility that ecological controls 

 could be recommended that would reduce the weed problem, 

 under certain situations at least. 



CONSERVATION 



The problems of conservation are extremely diverse, including 

 as they do such things as soil and soil water, wildlife of all kinds, 

 and aesthetic considerations. All that we have discussed of applied 

 ecology could be classified under the general heading of conserva- 

 tion. The field is so broad as to require specialists of all kinds in 

 its management, but this, of all fields, requires training to see each 

 problem in the light of others. Nowhere can the ecological point 

 of view be more effectively applied. 250 



To illustrate the limited effectiveness of specialization without 

 ecological appreciation, witness such operations as have been 

 known to take place almost simultaneously on public lands : a 

 road crew cutting a grade in a clay bank so as permanently to roil 

 a trout stream that another crew is improving with dams and 

 shelters; a silvicultural crew felling wolf trees and border shrub- 

 bery necessary for game food; a roadside cleanup crew burning 

 all fallen oak fuel available for fireplaces that are being built by a 

 recreation crew; a planting crew setting out pines in the only 

 open fields available to deer and partridge; and a fire-line crew 



