response to the often-repeated question of how to get rid of the 

 snake weed, there is but one method economically possible, 

 and that is to give the grama grass a chance and it will crowd 

 out the snake weed." In reference to the Russian thistle, you 

 read on page 24 : ". . . Ordinarily it does not seem to be able 

 to crowd out the native grasses, but in the dry-farming areas, 

 where the sod has been broken or the land deserted for any 

 reason, it usually takes the ground completely. It also takes 

 badly overstocked places on the range, especially where sheep 

 have been held too long. Whether the native grasses will be 

 able to crowd their way back into such areas or not, still re- 

 mains to be seen. If they are not, then the importance of this 

 pest is increased many times." . . . "Whatever may be said 

 of the tin desirability of weeds on a range, there is one thing to 

 be said in their favor. Any vegetable covering in an arid re- 

 gion is better than none, since such a covering prevents, to 

 some degree the removal of the soil." . . . "To the observer 

 from a humid climate perhaps no one characteristic of the arid 

 regions of the Southwest is so startling as the evidence on all 

 sides as the forceful action of water as an erosive agent. And 

 this in a land where water is the one thing that is everywhere 

 lacking." . . . ''showers are mostly torrential in character/' 

 ...,>< . "Let such a downpour occur on what seems to be a flat 

 plain, and in a few minutes the lower levels are flooded, and 

 the roadbed of any obstructing railroad is apt to suffer severely 

 . . . no one factor is so efficacious in producing erosion on 

 the arid grazing lands as the more or less complete removal of 

 their already scanty cover of plants by overstocking it . . . <r 



34 



