66 WESTERN GRAZING GROUNDS AND FOREST RANGES 



The first will be found in those great high ranges of the 

 Rockies, in most cases away up above timber line. Cat- 

 tle will seldom occupy of their own accord a range so 

 high as this, but for developing lambs these ranges are 

 unequaled. The season is short, seldom lasting over 

 three months, but the green feed that comes, almost 

 from under the retreating snow banks, is unusually 

 good, and furnishes the ewes with great quantities of 

 rich milk, while the little fellows quickly learn to eat the 

 weeds and grasses of the range and grow at a tremen- 

 dous rate. 



In Colorado, in the vicinity of the Tennessee Pass of 

 the Rockies, thousands of aged sheep, generally wethers 

 from Utah, Oregon, Idaho and those states raising the 

 heavy mutton breeds, are shipped in on the railroad by 

 speculators on a feed-in-transit rate. They are unloaded 

 about July 1, and on the superb feed found in those high 

 ranges lying mostly above timber-line they put on fat 

 very rapidly. They are generally reloaded and go for- 

 ward to the large eastern markets early in September. 

 These high ranges are for the most part so located as 

 to be practically inaccessible except by shipping in on 

 the railroad, hence they cannot be utilized to any extent 

 by the local sheepmen. 



The second feature is those open prairie-like areas 

 known as parks. These are found all over the region, 

 especially in Colorado where such splendid examples of 

 them as the famous North Park and South Park are 

 noteworthy. The parks lie generally at an average ele- 

 vation of between 5,000 and 7,000 feet and are practically 

 free from timber, although it surrounds them on all sides. 



The grasses are mostly gramas (Bouteloua) and 

 varieties of the wheat grasses, with much blue stem 



