VI. GRAZING INDICATORS. 



Kinds of grazing. — Grazing practice depends primarily upon the kind of 

 stock, the nature of the vegetation, the season, and the degree of control of 

 the range. It varies more or less with all of these, but often to a much smaller 

 degree than the best management would require. The four kinds of stock 

 usually handled, namely, cattle, horses, sheep, and goats, not only have more or 

 less definite preferences as to the type of grazing, but their effect upon the latter 

 is also markedly different. In addition, they differ much in herding manage- 

 ment and its relation to carrying capacity. With respect to grazing type, 

 cattle and horses prefer grasses, sheep prefer herbs and weeds, and goats 

 prefer shrubs or "browse." While this distinction is far from absolute, it 

 marks a fundamental preference upon which the best practice must be built. 

 It is the basis of mixed grazing, in which cattle and sheep, or cattle, sheep, and 

 goats, are grazed upon a range at the same time. Mixed grazing is especially 

 indicated in the ecotone between the chaparral, desert scrub or sagebrush 

 and grassland, but it is desirable in practically all associations except such 

 pure grass types as the short-grass plains. The maintenance of the proper 

 carrying capacity in any type depends upon a knowledge of the difference in 

 habits of stock with respect to the closeness and thoroughness with which each 

 grazes, the amount of trampling, trailing, etc. 



The handling of both herd and range depends in the first degree upon the 

 season during which grazing is possible or desirable. The time and duration 

 of the grazing season are determined partly by the behavior of the natural 

 cover and partly by climatic conditions, chiefly the cold and snowfall of win- 

 ter. In the North, where the winters are long and severe, summer con- 

 stitutes the sole grazing season and both feeding and protection are either 

 highly desirable or absolutely necessary for approximately half of -the year. 

 In the central portion of the West the summer grazing lies largely in the 

 mountains and the winter grazing in the plains and valleys, permitting the 

 regular movement of stock from one to the other. This is determined chiefly 

 by the period during which the high summer ranges are accessible, but in some 

 cases by the furnishing of water through winter snows, as in the Red Desert 

 of Wyoming. In the Southwest the mild climate of winter permits handling 

 stock on the range throughout the year, and the only limitations to this method 

 are set by lack of water or feed. However, while year-long grazing has been 

 the rule for many years throughout this region, the frequent recurrence of 

 drought has shown the necessity of complete utilization of the high summer 

 ranges, and the desirability of more or less winter feeding. This is the one 

 region in which there is a distinct winter forage composed of annual herbs, 

 with the interesting consequence that summer and winter grazing are normally 

 possible on the same area. 



The nature and degree of control of the range have a definite bearing upon 

 grazing. This is largely concerned with the carrying capacity, but in cases of 

 overgrazing it is the latter which determines the sufficiency of summer or 

 winter range and the kind of grazing possible upon it. It is a well-known fact 

 that the open range of the West has greatly deteriorated under existing con- 

 ditions, in which the only title the stockman can acquire inheres in keeping 



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