342 CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON. 



The grazing and rodent quadrats in northern Arizona were visited 

 and charted in both spring and fall, while a considerable number of 

 other permanent quadrats in grassland have yielded much information 

 as to carrying capacity and the effect of the 11-year climatic cycle. The 

 course of the latter has been followed in various regions, and every 

 doubt of its paramount importance in the production of forage and 

 stock has been removed. The effect of the 2 to 3 year cycle is now 

 under investigation, and its importance is already indicated by the 

 behavior of grassland during the past 3 years. The intensive study of 

 grazing indicators is well under way, and it is hoped to work out a 

 practical system for each grassland and scrub association during the 

 field work of the next few years. 



Land Classification and Settlement, hy F. E. Clements and Edith Clements. 



The comprehensive study of indicators during the past 6 years has 

 brought out clearly their basic importance in the adequate classifica- 

 tion of land, and subsequent settlement, as shown in "Plant Indi- 

 cators." Indicator communities not only serve to distinguish agricul- 

 tural and grazing land from potential or actual forest land, but, what 

 is much more important, they are also invaluable in making it possible 

 to recognize 4 types of land for production, namely, for humid farming, 

 dry-farming, dry-farming and grazing, and grazing alone. Thorough 

 familiarity with the West makes it certain that its proper productive- 

 ness and prosperity are impossible until such a land classification has 

 been made. In this connection, a particular effort is being made to 

 distinguish and enumerate prosperous, unprosperous, and abandoned 

 farms and ranches in the various climax regions, to ascertain the 

 causes of failure, and to correlate these with climate and vegetation 

 in such a way as to promote proper classification and to direct success- 

 ful settlement. The West needs an intelligent land policy above all 

 things, and it is hoped that a detailed knowledge of the economic and 

 social loss involved under present conditions will lead to the desired 

 action by State and Nation. Indicators are also valuable in designat- 

 ing the types of crops as well as the most promising varieties of them for 

 the different regions, and consequently in helping county agents to 

 direct crop production in strict conformity with the character of 

 regional and local climate. Of equally great importance is the recogni- 

 tion of the fact that wet and dry phases of the climatic cycles are prac- 

 tically certain to recur at definite intervals. As a consequence, it is 

 hoped that experiment stations, county agents, and farmers them- 

 selves will gradually develop a system of agricultural production in 

 semi-arid and arid regions, which will permit of expansion during the 

 wet phase and contraction during the dry one, together with a cyclic 

 change of crops to fit varieties to the proper phase of the cycle. 



