CHAPTER XVIII 



RESEARCH METHODS IN RANGE AND PASTURE 

 REVEGETATION 



It has been shown in Chapter VI that a more or less orderly 

 change is continuously taking place in the composition and 

 density of the plant cover everywhere, regardless of whether 

 the land is utilized by man or remains unclaimed in its virgin 

 state. The methods of cropping on range lands determine 

 whether the plant succession shall be in the direction of improve- 

 ment or of degeneration in the yield and nutritive value of the 

 forage, regardless of the rapidity of that succession. It seems 

 hardly necessary to call attention to the importance of knowing 

 with a reasonable degree of accuracy the trend, up or down the 

 scale, of the development of vegetation on pasture lands, as 

 this tendency determines the ultimate grazing capacity of the 

 land. Experience — in this matter a very costly teacher — 

 has shown without doubt that an occasional ocular examination 

 to determine the condition of the grazing grounds in a given 

 locality is quite unreliable for the noting of slight changes or 

 even the more striking departures in the replacement or suc- 

 cession of pasture vegetation. 



In the study of grazing capacity and pasture revegetation 

 it is essential to know with precision (i) the ways of reproduction 

 of the dominant species of the vegetation and their capacity 

 therefor, particularly of the palatable species and of the more 

 aggressive unpalatable intruders; (2) which plant or set of 

 plants is gaining dominion over the soil in response to the differ- 

 ent methods of grazing use and also on similar unused lands; 

 (3) the potential or maximum forage yield of the different con- 

 spicuous grazing types; (4) the variation in the yield of the 

 different types year after year; and (5) any beneficial effects 

 resulting from a slight change in the methods of handling the 

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