324 MEADOWS AND PASTURES 



men not to drive beneath the oak trees with which the 

 pasture is studded. Moreover, what grass there is found 

 growing under the trees has in it little sweetness or rich- 

 ness, and animals do not care to eat it. No one loves 

 trees better than I, and we have them in our pastures, 

 but we consider that amount of land covered with trees 

 as forest land, park land or what you like, not pasture 

 land. I do not like sheep to lie under trees during the 

 heats of midday, as they pollute the grass with their 

 droppings and afterward myriads of parasites appear, 

 and when the grass springs fresh and green lambs nib- 

 bling it take them in and are sickened and destroyed. 

 While I would not, from aesthetic reasons, counsel the 

 destruction of all the trees in the pasture, yet I should 

 expect to get larger returns from the pasture that had 

 at most only here and there a tree scattered over its 

 surface, and most profit of all from the field that had 

 not one tree, but where animals grazed in the open and 

 took refuge from the sun if at all in airy sheds which 

 might be situated on the highest land and whence manure 

 would be taken from time to time and scattered over the 

 field. The waste of manure under trees and in pond 

 holes and streams from pastured cattle is a serious drain 

 on the resources of the land and one that no field can 

 forever safely bear. 



Turning to Grass. Once I ranched in Utah and we 

 had 2,000 cattle running over the desert hills in winter, 

 eating the dry grass. Commonly they kept their flesh 

 fairly well, though after the snow had gone they must 

 make long marches over hard and stony trails to water 

 and back again to grass. We lost few from starvation, 



