A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 533 



in central Utah, after establishment of the national forest, showed that 

 in a period of 15 years, the forage cover was, through careful manage- 

 ment, restored sufficiently on the better soil areas to produce a grazing 

 capacity four times greater in 1927 than in 1912. Similar improve- 

 ment is recorded on many national forest areas in the West. 



Some private owners, recognizing the folly of excessive use of their 

 lands, have modified their grazing practices; but this has been almost 

 impossible to accomplish where private holdings are so intermingled 

 with public domain lands as to make complete use of the forage neces- 

 sary to discourage intrusion of other livestock owners. Losses result- 

 ing from starvation in drought periods and forced shipments as a 

 result of uneconomic conditions have relieved the public domain and 

 most of the private lands for brief periods, but deterioration has con- 

 tinued on large areas of private and uncontrolled public forest lands, 

 usually as a result of overstocking during periods with favorable 

 markets, and as a result of recurrent drought. 



Numerous examples might be cited of unsatisfactory range condi- 

 tions still present on private and uncontrolled public forest lands and 

 of their deleterious effects on the social, economic, and other condi- 

 tions in the West. For example, on a private range in the ponderosa 

 pine type of eastern Oregon the forage cover had been so closely grazed 

 in 1920 that the area was practically a dust bed. Needles on the 

 branches of timber reproduction within 3 feet of the ground had been 

 eaten so completely that the branches were killed. Reproduction 

 under 2 or 3 feet high was so closely grazed that it was making 

 practically no growth, and the soil was so trampled that seedlings 

 did not readily become established. 



In Montana there is a large acreage of former grassland, occurring 

 as scattered openings in the forest, on which the cover has been con- 

 verted by overgrazing to low-value plants such as rabbit brush, 

 yellow brush, and various weeds. W. G. McGinnies has found that 

 this transition has reduced the grazing capacity of these areas from 

 about 2 acres to about 11 acres per cow per month. 



Studies by the Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Sta- 

 tion of spring-fall ranges in the foothills of Utah near the lower edge 

 of the noncommercial forest type show losses of 40 to 90 percent in 

 range values during the 50 to 60 years that they have been grazed. 

 On areas protected from fire and grazing for a number of years, 

 Pickford 3 found that the valuable native wheat grasses and blue- 

 grasses constitute 68 percent and the practically worthless sagebrush 

 only 11 percent of the vegetative cover. Tracts which have been 

 over giazed furnish only three fifths as great a grazing capacity as 

 the protected areas, and they have much less perennial grass, more 

 than twice as much sagebrush, and a materially larger stand of low- 

 value annual grasses than the protected areas. 



A striking constrast, showing the value of good range management 

 and maintained forage and livestock production, is afforded by the 

 Santa Rita Experimental Range in Arizona and the depleted adjacent 

 public domain. Although these ranges are mainly untimbered, the 

 example illustrates what can be done with adequate control and good 

 management on timbered lands. Areas on the outside range require 

 from 3 to 4 times as many acres to support each animal as do similar 



s Pickford, G. D. The Influence of Continued Heavy Grazing and of Promiscuous Burning on Spring- 

 Fall Ranges in Utah, Ecology, v. 13, no. 2: 159-171. 1932. 



