2lS 



THE FORESTER. 



September, 



from the higher levels, including quantities 

 of fertilizing material, was deposited in 

 those places, with the result that the bot- 

 toms of the valleys were kept level and 

 were enriched and made the scene of an 

 ever-perpetuated growth of beautiful and 

 luxuriant grasses. 



But, after the completion of the South- 

 ern Pacific Railroad, in 1881, numerous 

 small owners shipped in their herds from 

 worn-out districts in Texas and elsewhere, 

 while still others, driving their cattle over- 

 land to California, and deterred by the 

 terrors of the Colorado desert, stopped by 

 the way. 



The multiplication of small herds, with 

 their natural increase, together with re- 

 stricted sales due to the low price of cattle 

 at times during the eighties, soon caused 

 the range to be stocked to its utmost ca- 

 pacity, even in favorable years. In sea- 

 sons of scarcity, when feed was short, the 

 cattle began to perish from starvation, de- 

 vouring in their desperate struggle for ex- 

 istence, almost every vestige of growth 

 upon the plains. Being compelled in their 

 wanderings back and forth between the 

 higher and lower grounds, to take twenty 

 steps for a mouthful of food where for- 

 merly but one was necessary, they deepened 

 their paths from place to place ; the pre- 

 vailing winds blew the dust from these 

 paths until they lay inches below the gen- 

 eral surface, and then, upon a country 

 prepared for destruction, came the rains. 

 The water, collecting in the trails from 

 the bared and devastated surface of the 

 country, fell swiftly to lower levels, gully- 

 ing the trails as it ran, and gathering in 

 destructive freshets in the larger valleys. 

 The bunch grasses, having been depleted 

 by the starving cattle, were no longer able 

 to withstand the rush of the floods, and 

 the gullying process began on a large scale 

 through the very heart of what were for- 

 merly the most luxuriantly grassy regions 

 of the country. When these channels are 

 once established through a given district, 

 the water is thereafter destined to flow 

 through them, no longer spreading out 

 over the level bottoms and no longer being 

 available for the growth of the bunch 

 grasses which formerly throve in these 



situations. In this way, when a valley has 

 once been so gullied as to carry the water 

 in streams, instead of spreading it out in 

 broad floods, the very existence of the 

 richest grazing districts is rendered im- 

 possible. 



A striking instance of this process of 

 ruin is offered by the San Simon Valley. 

 This once beautiful district has been de- 

 spoiled and hopelessly ruined within the 

 short space of some fifteen years. At 

 Solomonville, the great barranca which 

 has cut its way up the valley is about fifty 

 feet across and from ten to twelve feet in 

 depth. From this point it extends south- 

 ward for sixty to seventy miles, with tribu- 

 tary washes and barrancas branching out 

 to a yearly increasing distance on either 

 side. 



In the midst of this ruined district, I 

 once talked with a lone and aged rancher, 

 too old and too poor to move away, the 

 personification of the ruined country about 

 him, who had witnessed, and who had 

 helped to bring about the destruction of 

 this valley from the very beginning. He 

 said that, fifteen years before, the first 

 night that he camped there he tied his 

 four horses to his four wagon wheels, 

 where they grazed in plenty during the 

 night. At the time of our conversation, 

 although it had been raining for just a 

 month past, and although the San Simon 

 Creek contained a stream of running water, 

 the country was as bare of grass as a floor. 

 Here and there was to be found a patch of 

 rank cockle burrs, and on the adjacent 

 flats the few remaining cattle were filling 

 themselves with pusley and red-root. 

 Such is the scene of ruin which now re- 

 places what were the former beauties of a 

 favored country. 



Let us consider this typical instance in 

 its various industrial bearings: In the 

 first place, the stock industry itself has 

 suffered, in some localities almost to the 

 point of extermination. The ruinous 

 methods which seem inevitable upon a 

 public range, which, being everybody's 

 property, is nobody's care, have so de- 

 stroyed its value, and have so changed the 

 original condition of the country that in 

 many cases, in spite of the present high 



