(1) How and how much do the sheep permanently injure 

 the forage plants, both by eating them and by tramping them, 

 down? 



(2) How may this kind of injury be prevented or made less 

 harmful? 



(3) Can sheep owners profitably improve the injured ranges 

 by sowing on them seed from the best native and foreign forage 

 plants? 



(4) If so, what kind of seed will be the best for this purpose? 



(5) Finally, how can enough seed from the best plants and 

 grasses be produced cheaply enough to make re-seeding practical?' 



It will naturally take some years of study and experiment to 

 get and to publish useful answers to all these questions. 



The members of the botanical department spent the sum- 

 mer of 1901 on the ranges in order that they might see for 

 themselves exactly what plants the sheep eat^ and what lasting 

 harm they do these plants. They intended also to find out which 

 ones produce the richest forage and yet are themselves least 

 injured by the sheep. These facts are presented in the following 

 bulletin, which aims to give a clear account of the general situa- 

 tion on the ranges, and to open the way for experiments in their 

 improvement. The plants are described under their common 

 names as far as these names are known, and, in order to make 

 the descriptions clearer, photographs of the plants just as they 

 grow on the hillsides have been liberally used. 



Part of the cost of the expedition was met by the Experiment 

 Station, whose Regents appropriated three hundred dollars for 

 that purpose. Senator P. L. Flanigan aided the Station men 

 greatly by furnishing them horses and mules, with an outfit of 

 saddles and pack bags, and by giving them every possible assist- 

 ance in the field. Messrs. Talbot, Van Buren and others furnished 

 a great deal of valuable information in regard to the plants. In 

 fact, all the sheepmen who had heard of it aided this scientific 

 study of the range plants, and did what they could to make it 

 possible, and to make its results really valuable. 



In the sagebrush country of Eastern Nevada the soils and 

 the plants are not like those found in the well- watered, heavily 

 timbered Sierra region. The department intends, therefore, to 



