224 SHEEP FARMING IN AMERICA 



a desultory fashion, searching right and left for 

 subsistence for his flock. There is a steadily inten- 

 sifying spirit of opposition to the nomadic sheep 

 men on the part of local settlers along streams and 

 in the valleys of these mountain states, since the 

 herds eat the grass that would naturally belong to 

 settlers' horses and cows, and because they some- 

 times pollute streams that must serve as drinking 

 water for the settlers and their animals. 



WAITING FOK GRASS TO COME. 



The herder cannot hasten toward his coveted 

 destination, for when by drouth he is driven from 

 the desert the snow is yet covering his summer 

 range, hence there may be a trying period of jour- 

 neying with occasionally very short feed. In fact, 

 traveling flocks not unfrequently camp on each oth- 

 er's bed grounds, one after the other in succession 

 sometimes to the number of half a dozen. The last 

 comers find little to eat save the roots of the grass. 



This habit of roving prevents the sheep men from 

 having any very great regard for the preservation 

 of the range and makes it difficult for them to pre- 

 serve it even should they desire so to do. In truth 

 there are regions where nomadic sheep have changed 

 a once well-grassed country into one almost bare of 

 grass and containing no forage other than compara- 

 tively worthless brush and weeds. 



Lambing is usually delayed until the flocks are 

 established upon their summer range, since it is 

 difficult to move ewes with young lambs without 



