WHERE SEEDING WILL PAY 55 



m density if the lands are not grazed destructively each year, 

 and eventually a complete cover may be obtained. 



How to Graze Newly Seeded Lands. — The first year after 

 seeding, the young plants seldom produce much forage, nor do 

 they withstand heavy grazing. Injury to the young cover by 

 grazing and trampling is most severe early in the season of the 

 first year, but even in the autumn moderate grazing should be 

 practiced. On mountain ranges it generally pays to keep stock 

 off the seeded portion during the entire first season. In the 

 autumn or late summer of the second year moderate grazing 

 seldom thins the stand seriously. 



Where Seeding Will Pay. — Seeding to cultivated forage 

 plants is warranted only where the soil is fertile, where there 

 is ample moisture, and where the growing season is long enough 

 to permit good growth. If the mountain ranges of the West 

 are taken as a whole, probably only a small part of the area 

 may be economically seeded to cultivated plants. This limi- 

 tation may be restated as due chiefly to (i) excessive eleva- 

 tion, (2) insufficient moisture, (3) poor soil, and (4) inability 

 of cultivated plants to compete successfully with the native 

 vegetation. Plants that produce a sod are much to be preferred 

 to bunchgrasses which are entirely dependent upon seed for 

 their perpetuation. 



It is evident that there is great need for plants as well adapted 

 to mountain range and arid plain as are Kentucky bluegrass and 

 Bermudagrass to certain sections in the humid and semi-humid 

 regions. Neither of these introduced plants nor any other 

 cultivated species thus far tried thrives under the rigorous 

 conditions that obtain over the vast stretches of western grazing 

 grounds. It is significant, however, that most of the cultivated 

 forage plants grown in this country have been introduced from 

 the Old World. In addition to those mentioned, are timothy, 

 redtop, Hungarian bromegrass, various species and varieties of 

 clovers, alfalfa, sorghums, and vetches. Furthermore, there 

 are such semi-domesticated introduced plants as alfilaria {Ero- 

 dium) and wild oats (Avena), whose forage value on the native 



