804 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



tation of any kind grows, perhaps 5,000,000 acres. This would leave 

 for range land between 40,00t>,000 and 45,000,000 acres, which would 

 include both mountain and desert lands, the former furnishing winter 

 and the latter the summer range. 



The desert lands can only be used in the winter season when partly 

 covered with snow. The snow hardly ever falls so deep on the desert 

 as to cover the sage brush, of which one kind, called white sage, is very 

 nutritious and upon it the sheep feed and do well. For variety, and 

 nearly equal to the white sage for feed, is a bunch grass, which abounds, 

 growing in apparently the most barren places. It ripens and cures 

 early in the season, retaining all its nutriment. It remains for winter 

 grazing, because no water is near for stock that might wander out on 

 the desert during the grazing season. Bunch grass, like the sage brush, 

 is rarely covered with snow. When feeding on it and the white sage 

 sheep quench their thirst with snow. If it is a favorable season many 

 of them come off the desert in fine condition. When the snow leaves 

 the desert the sheep are removed to the foothills and lower lands, and 

 continue to advance up the mountain side until July or August, when 

 they are high up in the heart of the mountains, where they feed on wild 

 wheat, meadow grass, peavine, and other mountain herbage, and browse 

 on the quaking aspen and a variety of bushes and shrubs. As winter 

 approaches they move down toward the lower lands and valleys. The 

 amount of feed on the range depends on the fall of snow, which is 

 lighter some seasons than others and melts off the mountains earlier, 

 so that occasionally there is difficulty in getting water. 



It has been demonstrated that in the high, dry, bracing air of the 

 interior stock grow and fatten on much less than at the sea level, and 

 the same degree of heat or cold, as marked by the thermometer, appears 

 to affect them less. 



The grazing lands of Utah are almost unlimited, and furnish a great 

 variety of feed. They include the second tables of the river courses, 

 the slopes of the foothills and lesser ranges not too far from water, 

 and the coves and valleys of the mountains. 



Some of the more valuable grazing lands are just above the line of 

 where water can be carried for irrigation, but here the cattle hold the 

 range, unless the sheepmen own it. Sheep will feed on range that 

 cattle could not live on, and partly for this reason the cattlemen try to 

 hold the best range. There has been more or less strife on this point, 

 and the sheepmen fought the measure in the legislature which pro- 

 hibited their flocks running to a stream nearer than 7 miles from a town 

 or village. 



In southern Utah very little or no feed is given to the sheep, but in the 

 northern counties, where they do not run on the desert, many of them 

 are fed during the severest part of winter. Grain is seldom made a 

 part of their rations, but straw and alfalfa hay serve the purpose. 

 Sometimes a little oats, bran, or chops are given, but those who never 



