EDITORIAL 



WASTE OF FORAGE THROUGH LACK OF GRAZING 



THESE are days when conservation has come to be 

 a grim reaUty. As never before the American peo- 

 ple are striving to save in every way possible. 

 Every natural resource is being made the most of and 

 this is doubly true if it in any way affects our supply of 

 food and clothing. 



Much is being said, and very properly, about meatless 

 days, reduction in the use of fats, use of more and heavier 

 woolen clothing to save our coal, conserving our milk 

 supply for the children, and the husbanding of our 

 grains for use as human food. 



The American people must produce all of the beef, 

 mutton, wool, milk, cheese, butter and other animal 

 products possible ; and yet we must use in doing this the 

 minimum of our valuable grains. This means that we 

 should see to it that every scrap of our cheaper feeds is 

 used in this production. Undoubtedly the cheapest of 

 these feeds is to be found in our western range plants, 

 especially that highly succulent forage, both herbaceous 

 and shrubby, to be found in great abundance in the 

 higher mountainous regions. 



This range, in the northern Rocky Mountains, is not 

 fully utilized. It has never been grazed to anything like 

 its full carrying capacity and its waste without doubt con- 

 stitutes one of our greatest economic leaks in the present 

 crisis. 



The forage of our wild lands is produced more cheaply 

 than any other feed of like value. It simply grows with- 

 out cultivation or care of any kind, and it does not have 

 to be cut, hauled, etc., yet its real value is based, not on 

 the cost of production, but on the amount and value of 

 animal products it will produce when fully utilized by 

 grazing. Never in the history of our country has the 

 demand for animal products of all kinds been so great 

 as at the present time, and yet the demand for grains for 

 human food is so great that they should be used as spar 

 ingly as possible for the feeding of animals. It is, there- 

 fore, almost a crime to allow grass, if at all accessible, to 

 go to waste when the country is in such dire need of 

 what this forage will produce. The opinion is quite gen- 

 eral that the range lands of the West are already fully 

 utilized. This is true for certain portions of the range 

 only. On many of the National Forests in northern 

 Idaho, eastern Washington and western Montana the 

 number of stock grazed is not half what the range can 

 carry. Hundreds of thousands of acres of excellent for- 

 age in this region is wasting at the present time which 

 should have been transformed during the past summer 

 into meat and wool. When computed in pounds of food 

 and clothing this loss is enormous and its value at pres- 

 ent prices is indeed fabulous. Who is to blame for this 

 state of affairs, and how is this waste to be stopped? No 

 one is directly to blame, and the waste can be stopped 

 only by education and development. The farmers and 

 m 



stockmen of this region must be educated regarding the 

 nature and value of this range, and the forests must be 

 further developed with roads and stock trails in order 

 that they may be more accessible for trailing herds and 

 flocks in and out of these regions. The forest super- 

 visors are doing this as rapidly as their limited funds will 

 permit, they are also advertising this range and making 

 its value known to stockmen by every means at their 

 command. Yet they cannot get enough permittees to 

 take up the allotments made and only a small part of the 

 stock necessary to consume the forage which annually 

 goes to waste. One of the chief difficulties lies in the 

 fact that the farmers are as a rule inexperienced in trail- 

 ing stock back into rough and mountainous country. If 

 this range were in Utah, Arizona or California the vet- 

 eran stockmen in these regions would soon get to it, and 

 it would be fully utilized by these men who would at 

 once recognize its value and eagerly grasp this opportu- 

 nity for greater sheep and cattle production. Another 

 reason why this range is not taken is because stock 

 owners in the contiguous valleys do not fully understand 

 the great advantage accruing from the formation of co- 

 operative stock associations. In fact, many have never 

 heard of these associations and know nothing at all of 

 how they are operated. 



One concrete example will serve to explain conditions 

 obtaining on probably half the National Forests in the 

 northern Rockies, some of which have had practically no 

 grazing animals on them at any time. The forest re- 

 ferred to advertised to allot 12,000 sheep for the summer 

 of 1917, the range being capable of carrying from 25 to 

 40 per cent more if permittees could be found. However, 

 only 3,000 sheep were brought onto this range for the 

 season. This means that but 25 per cent of the forage 

 necessary to maintain at least 12,000 sheep with their 

 lambs was used during the past grazing season. In other 

 words, the forage necessary to maintain for three months 

 9,000 sheep with their lambs has been wasted. An in- 

 vestment in sheep of at least $125,000 could thus have 

 been maintained for one-fourth of the year and likewise 

 its increase of from 5,000 to 6,000 lambs, worth at a con- 

 servative estimate from $30,000 to $35,000. A fair gain 

 for the sheep for this period would be ten pounds per 

 head and for the lambs thirty-five pounds per head, 

 with two pounds of wool per head for sheep and lambs. 

 This means that forage sufficient to produce 90,000 

 pounds of mutton and from 175,000 to 210,000 pounds 

 of lamb or approximately 300,000 pounds of meat, and 

 from 28,000 to 30,000 pounds of wool, both much 

 needed at this time, is lost forever. The price at this 

 time is so fabulous that the reader is left to determine 

 the money value for himself. This is one of the 

 smallest National Forests. Many of them in the 

 region named could easily handle five times, and 



