PREFACE 17 



theless the author believes it possible to put the ex- 

 perience of thirty years' handling live stock on the open 

 ranges under all sorts of conditions into a book that 

 will be of some practical use and benefit to these stu- 

 dents and others engaged in the work. So far as pos- 

 sible, I have endeavored to write things down from 

 the practical point of view, and to put them in language 

 that would not smother their meaning in a haze of scien- 

 tific or professional expressions. 



The chapters on poisonous plants and range grasses 

 will, I trust, be found of value, not only to the forest 

 man but to the stockman. In my experience I have 

 found few stockmen who could identify by their proper 

 names even the commonest grasses on their ranges or 

 the various plants poisonous to stock, and I hope that 

 the illustrations and plates scattered through the work 

 will furnish a means of identifying them that will make 

 the book of value for that, if nothing more. It is possible 

 that the trained botanist will find errors in my classifi- 

 cation of some of the plants. I have made every effort 

 to check up each one of them and make certain they were 

 correct, but in several instances I found that the scien- 

 tists themselves did not all agree as to their proper names. 



In the chapter on diseases of animals I have only 

 tried to show the plainest symptoms of the ordinary 

 diseases that affect live stock as they appear to a stock- 

 man and not a veterinarian. It is of course impossible 

 to have a veterinarian at hand for every sickness that 

 the stockman finds among his domestic animals, and 

 it is to cover these emergency cases that I have written. 

 Most of the remedies are those to be found in every 

 stock-owner's cabin, and if not they should be there. 

 To the forest ranger, out in the hills with his saddle 



