vi PREFACE 



success. The happy-go-lucky range ventures characteristic of 

 the West in the early days have been largely supplanted by or- 

 derly, business-like methods. Even so, stockmen generally 

 throughout this country are not receiving maximum returns 

 from the livestock industry. Evidently this is due more to 

 overstocking during the free-for-all grazing period, which 

 continued for so long a tune in the far West, than to con- 

 spicuously destructive grazing during the last decade. The 

 momentous results of range improvement achieved on the 

 National Forests have proved beyond doubt the wisdom of 

 cropping the forage on the basis of a sustained annual yield 

 instead of overgrazing the pasture lands and taking chances 

 of disastrous losses from poisonous plants and the caprice of 

 the elements. 



There remains now the big economic problem of revegetating 

 the pasture and of maintaining such a nutritious forage cover 

 as will be consistent with a maximum use of the lands. For the 

 accomplishment of this, three things are necessary. There 

 should be maintained at all times an effective plant cover which 

 will bind the soil firmly and so preserve it against erosion and 

 other destructive agencies. It is also necessary to determine 

 which are the most important forage plants, as well as the 

 objectionable pasture species, and how the desirable forage 

 types may most expediently be improved. Furthermore, the 

 foraging animals should be handled in such a way as to secure 

 the largest percentage of offspring and of marketable stock 

 consistent with economical production. 



After fifteen years of intensive pasture investigations in the 

 United States Forest Service, it was the author's good fortune 

 to be called to the combined fields of instructional and investi- 

 gative work in range, pasture, and Hvestock management. This 

 congenial combination was of great assistance in the develop- 

 ment of what he believes to be a logical division and treatment 

 of so broad a subject. The present work deals chiefly with 

 the practical care and management of range and pasture lands 

 in this country. It discusses the character of pasture lands 

 and the history of grazing control; the reseeding of the range; 



