220 AGRlCl'LTrRAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924, 



Saturday, November 18, 1922. 

 rance investioatioxs. 



Mr. Andkhson. Colonel Greeley, we will take up this morning the 

 item on pa<;e 155. for exjicrinients and investifrations of ran<;e con- 

 ditions witliin the national forests or elsewhere. 



Colonel (iKKKLF:Y. This is the fund under which the Forest Service 

 maintains its special <;razinoj studies at the Great Basin Experiment 

 .Station in Ctali and its studies in the practical handling of cattle 

 ranges in Arizona and New Mexico, where the handling of cattle 

 un(ler improved methods of rotation grazing and other improvements 

 in range management is V)eing worked out. The real purpose of this 

 series of studies is to flevelop the scientific side of tlie use of the open 

 range lands of the West, to put the grazing industry upon a more 

 stahle hasis, and at the same time trying to get hetter results in keep- 

 ing up the j)roductivity of our range lands. A concrete illustration of 

 what this means, something I had a chance to check up personally 

 last summer, is working out of a system of rotation grazing on the 

 individual sheep or cattle allotments. This means that the principal 

 forage |)lants of the allotment must he determined, tlieir seeding pe- 

 riod and other reproduction hahits estahlished, and a distrihution of 

 the cattle or sheep worked out under which each portion of that 

 allotment will have an opportunity, every three or four years, to 

 fully re-seed witii tlie more valuahle native plants. As a result of 

 these scientific studies this system of deferred and rotation grazing, 

 as it is called, is now in effect on a considera])le numher of the range 

 allotments m portions of Utah and other States, where the grazing 

 conditions are most serious and the demand for the use of the range 

 is most intense. 



Another practical result of these investigations has been working 

 out the proper season for grazing the ranges of different types and at 

 different elevations, rletcrmining the time of the year when the 

 forage can he grazed without serious injury. We found, for example. 

 that a postponement of grazing of only two weeks at the beginning of 

 the season may liave a very marked effect upon the net returns from 

 the range and its sustained |)roductivity, because of the better oppor- 

 tunity given the forage to estahlisli itself. It has also been possible 

 through these investigations to establish for many of (un- range types 

 the changes in plants or forage types which indicate deteri(U-a(ion of 

 (he range. That has been well worked out on a luimber of the ranges 

 m I'tah where results show that as a range deteriorates from excessive 

 use the character of the j)lants changes; that the more nutritious 

 wheat grasses, for example, give way to certain classes of weeds, ami 

 that as excessive grazing continues these classes of wccmIs give wav 

 to more inferior weeds, until finally the carrying capacitv of the 

 range nmy ix' reduced to one-third or one-fourth of what it was when 

 in good condition. These indicator plants give the forest supervisor 

 und forest ranger a ready means of checking up on the condition of 

 Uioir ranges and a.seertaining where overgrazing is showing up. 

 These grazing investigations are exceedingly const ructiv(> in char- 

 acter, particularly as ihev are producing many things that the live- 

 stock industries of (he \Ves( use on (lM>ir private ranges, in methods 

 of herding and salting, and that sort of thing, as well as results which 

 are directly used for the hetternieni of the (iovernment ranges. 



