13 



As all the experiment stations are, through their bulletins, in 

 close communication with one another and with the Department 

 of Agriculture at Washington, D. C., the Nevada Station might 

 well be able to suggest for Nevada stockmen, plants and grasses 

 very useful in other western States and in foreign countries, that 

 might be equally useful here. 



There is naturally a great advantage in sowing the seed of 

 grasses and plants common in older and more thickly settled 

 countries, for seed from these countries may usually be obtained 

 in large quantities, while it is still a difficult matter to get the 

 seed of the best of our native forage plants and grasses. In time, 

 however, our enterprising American seedsmen will begin placing 

 on the market the seed of those grasses and forage plants which 

 make our western ranges naturally such excellent grazing lands 

 for sheep and cattle. Some of the foreign grasses and forage 

 plants would undoubtedly be very useful in western America, as 

 useful, perhaps, as the Australian salt bush has been in South 

 Africa. There the salt bush, originally introduced from Aus- 

 tralia, spread far and wide over the sheep ranges until it was 

 thoroughly established and had produced seed abundantly. Mean- 

 while the improvident greed of the Australian sheepmen had led 

 them to overstock their ranges and thus to so destroy their home 

 supply of salt bush that they were obliged to reseed their depleted 

 ranges with Australian salt bush seed imported from South Africa. 



This salt bush is a hardy annual plant, coarse and weedy in 

 appearance, but nutritious and capable of producing abundant 

 seed. A rancher in Plumas county, California, planted some of 

 the seed recently in a little piece of fenced ground. He didn't 

 know what salt bush should look like and w r as soon much annoyed 

 to find his bit of ground covered with great bunches of some new 

 \veed. As he is an industrious man, he pulled up all these weeds, 

 and months afterward found that they were the salt bushes he had 

 been waiting for. There are probably many parts of Nevada 

 where this valuable forage plant can be successfully raised, but it 

 is not yet proven that this is really true. 



The salt bush is, however, only one of many valuable forage 

 plants and grasses which may prove very useful to western 

 stockmen. s It is the aim of the Nevada Experiment Station to 



