A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 537 



water from diminution or contamination, and grazing has been elim- 

 inated from about 720,000 acres of watershed lands on national 

 forests for this purpose. 



Ordinarily, serious damage to timber reproduction will not result 

 from range management that is entirely satisfactory from the stand- 

 point of the maintenance or restoration of the forage resource on 

 western forest lands. Overstocking of the range as a whole, too great 

 concentration of livestock on local areas, and grazing after forage has 

 become coarse, dry, and of low palatability, or before new succulent 

 growth has started in the spring, is apt to result in unwarranted 

 damage to timber reproduction. The damage from grazing may 

 become more of a problem where the sprouts and other growth of 

 hardwood species are browsed readily, as for instance, commercially 

 used aspen in Utah. 



Where climatic conditions are rather unfavorable to establishment 

 of timber reproduction, damage from grazing may be important. For 

 example, the half million acres or more of timberland in the South- 

 west, on which satisfactory timber regeneration has been prevented 

 or retarded by improper grazing, call for research to determine specifi- 

 cally how timber and grazing use may be best combined and adjusted 

 to each other. Drought, and long periods between the combination 

 of a good seed crop and favorable weather necessary for seedling 

 establishment, are such serious obstacles to regeneration of the forest 

 that grazing damage, which would otherwise be a small or even negli- 

 gible amount, becomes important. 



Studies by the Southwestern Forest and Range Experiment Station 

 have shown that on cattle range in northern Arizona 27 percent of all 

 the reproduction advanced beyond the seedling stage had in 5 years 

 shown some damage from grazing and part of this had been browsed 

 recurrently. During the first 2 or 3 years of the existence of seedlings, 

 6 percent were injured and 1.3 percent were killed. On sheep range 

 9 percent of the advanced reproduction was injured during the 5-year 

 period. Of 2- and 3-year-old seedlings, 7 percent were injured and 

 less than 2 percent killed. Injury to advanced reproduction largely 

 takes the form of retarded growth. This together with the compara- 

 tively small seedling mortality from grazing may be the overbalancing 

 factor preventing satisfactory regeneration of the forest, as in this 

 instance, where at least 45 percent of the year-old seedlings and over 

 1 5 percent of the 2-year-old seedlings died from natural causes. These 

 studies also indicated, irrespective of whether the range forage was 

 depleted or overutilized, that lack of water or succulent forage is apt 

 to increase the grazing of terminal shoots in dry periods. Evidently 

 under these conditions livestock satisfy their thirst in part by browsing 

 the succulent new pine shoots. 



Studies by the Forest Service have shown that livestock should not 

 be placed on summer forest ranges on areas in need of regeneration 

 until the forage has made a good start and should not be left on the 

 range after the more palatable plants are utilized. Sheep or goats 

 should not be bedded or allowed to shade up in areas of timber 

 reproduction, nor be driven through such areas in a close or compact 

 band. Open herding and 1 -night bedding grounds for sheep 

 grazing and a close approximation to this in handling goats will help 

 materially to keep damage to a minimum. 



