2l6 



THE FORESTER. 



September, 



THE OPEN RANGE AND THE IRRIGATION FARMER.* 



By Professor R. H. Forbes, 

 Director of Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station. 



PART I. 



AMONG the great public works, which 

 look towards the upbuilding of the 

 great West, especially important 

 because of its immediate effects upon irri- 

 gation, is that of forest preservation and 

 administration. " Save the forests" is the 

 watchword of a great corps of scientific 

 workers and their sympathizers, both 

 public and private, and their efforts have 

 resulted, throughout the West, in the safe- 

 guarding of great areas of forested water- 

 sheds, and of the interests immediately 

 dependent upon them. 



The popular idea of a forest, however, 

 is that it is composed of great trees, with 

 their attendant and dependent forms of 

 life. But it must be considered and re- 

 membered that, throughout the great West, 

 including the Great Basin, the Rocky 

 Mountains, and the Great Plains regions, 

 the areas which concern these workers 

 and their abettors are but a minor fraction 

 of the whole. The watersheds of many 

 of our great irrigating streams throughout 

 the West, are covered to but an insignifi- 

 cant extent with forests of the greater 

 trees. 



It is my purpose, however, to call your 

 attention to-day to the fact that, especially 

 in the Southwest, great watershed areas 

 are forested with "little trees" thou- 

 sands of them to the square rod which, 

 making up by numbers what they lack in 

 individual size, are no less potent than 

 their greater brethren in governing the 

 flow and behavior of the adjacent rivers. 



* One of the papers read at the summer meet- 

 ing of the American Forestry Asssociation, held 

 at Denver, Col., August 27-29. We regret the 

 necessity of having to publish this paper in two 

 parts, but owing to its length and the many de- 

 mands on our limited space we are compelled 

 to present it in that way. Editor. 



I refer to the numerous grasses, so char- 

 acteristic of vast areas of western country. 



I will speak more in detail of that 

 region best known to me, the Great South- 

 west, within whose vague boundaries are 

 included a large part of western Texas, 

 New Mexico, Arizona, southern Nevada, 

 and a portion of southern California. 

 This empire of deserts, mountain chains, 

 and grassy valleys, industrially the young- 

 est portion of the United States, and 

 scientifically the least known, is at present 

 undergoing botanical changes, and conse- 

 quent industrial ones, of the greatest 

 consequence to that region, and of instruc- 

 tive interest to other districts. Though 

 speaking more particularly of the South- 

 west, the principles which there obtain 

 may be in part applied to the various 

 great grazing regions of the West. 



As to its natural features the Southwest 

 is characterized by few, though often tor- 

 rentrial, rains, mild winters, and long, 

 hot summers conditions which render 

 the country essentially semi-arid. In such 

 a region, where the water supply is origi- 

 nally so scant, and where evaporation and 

 the rapidly-draining soils lead to its rapid 

 loss, the adjustment of plants to their sur- 

 roundings is a very delicate and precari- 

 ous one, and vegetation pursues various 

 ingenious methods of self-maintenance. 

 Some classes of plants hardily take Nature 

 at her worst, and inure themselves to the 

 severest conditions of heat and drouth 

 that can be inflicted upon them. The 

 each', for instance, contracting their sur- 

 faces to the least extent consistent with a 

 certain bulk, and charging their juices 

 with hygroscopic substances which resist 

 evaporation, ask no mercy of sandy deserts 

 and of blazing sun. 



Pursuing another method, the ocateilla, 



