HISTORICAL, 19 



administered upon the basis of a definite carrying capacity. The result has 

 been to favor regeneration to such an extent that most of the ranges have 

 recovered their normal carrying capacity to a large degree. With the exten- 

 sive work in reconnoissance went the establishment of permanent quadrats, 

 especially in the Coconino, Targhee and Deerlodge National Forests. Those 

 on the Coconino especially have been actively studied (plate 89, b), and have 

 already yielded results of much value (Hill, 1917). 



The most signal advance has been marked by the organization of a grazing 

 experiment station of the Forest Service at Ephraim, Utah, in 1912. This 

 has been followed by the establishment of experimental pastures for grazing 

 at Mandan (North Dakota), and Ardmore (South Dakota), by the Office of 

 Dry Land Agriculture of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Somewhat 

 earlier than this, in 1908, Marsh had begun experimental work in Colorado on 

 poisonous plants, and this is now carried on at a special experiment station 

 at Salina, Utah, on the Fishlake National Forest. In 1914, the Jornada Grazing 

 Reserve was established near Las Cruces, and this, like the Santa Rita Reserve, 

 is essentially a grazing experiment station in the open range country. It 

 seems inevitable that the organization of grazing reserves and experiment 

 stations will proceed rapidly until they are found in all the important grazing 

 types of the country, as well as in each State, including the South. An account 

 is given in Chapter VI of the inauguration of a comprehensive system of grazing 

 investigations throughout the West during 1917-1919. 



Practically none of the grazing studies abstracted in the following pages 

 was intended to deal with indicator plants. In spite of this fact, however, 

 they all contribute more or less definitely to the understanding of grazing 

 indicators, because of the simple and direct relation grassland dominants and 

 subdominants have to grazing. In addition, the abstracts furnish a fairly 

 complete outline of the progress of grazing investigations during the past 

 twenty years. 



Smith, 1899. — The first clear recognition of grazing as a fundamental 

 field for investigation was accorded by Smith in his study of grazing problems 

 in the Southwest. His paper is a mine of valuable suggestions, and fore- 

 shadows a large number of the later experiments. The author has a distinct 

 idea of grazing indicators and of succession, as the following excerpts show : 



"Before the ranges were overgrazed the grasses of the red prairies were 

 largely bluestems or sage grasses (Andropogon) , often as high as a horse's back. 

 After pasturing and subsequent to the trampling and hardening of the soil, 

 the dog grasses or needle grasses (Aristida) took the whole country. After 

 further overstocking and trampling, the needle grasses were driven out and the 

 mesquite grasses (Hilaria and Bulbilis) became the most prominent species. 

 The occurrence of any one of these as the dominant or most conspicuous grass 

 is to some extent an index of the state of the land and of what stage in over- 

 stocking and deterioration has been reached. 



"There is often a succession of dominant grasses in nature through natural 

 causes, but never to so marked an extent as on the cattle ranges during the 

 process of deterioration from overgrazing. Thus, the grasses in any given val- 

 ley are liable to change in a long series of years through destruction by wood 

 lice, prairie dogs, by fires, unusually early or late frosts, or by failure on the 

 part of the plant to ripen seed. This latter contingency frequently occurs in 

 the case of the big bluestems and the feather sedge, and probably with some 



