10 BULLETIN 588, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



and under such conditions the conversion of grass into meat is gen- 

 erally inefficient. 



At best, it is difficult to provide enough water on the Jornada 

 Range Reserve and on other ranges throughout the Southwest. Lack 

 of natural surface water, high cost of boring and maintaining wells, 

 uncertainty of obtaining rain and flood water to fill storage tanks, 

 and low carrying capacity of the range lands all stand in the way. 

 In planning the system of water supply provision should be made first 

 for a few permanent watering places which can be relied upon without 

 fail in time of drought. With these as a nucleus the system should 

 be extended by the construction of enough tanks or other develop- 

 ment works to provide for reasonably efficient use of all forage during 

 average years. This may appear to be faulty advice, since in time of 

 drought all the range is needed to tide the stock over 5 but the expense 

 of providing enough deep wells to insure the proper use of the range 

 is not always justified by the number of stock the range will carry. 



Observations on the Jornada Range Reserve to date indicate that 

 fairly good utilization of plains and mesa range can be secured when 

 the stock do not have to travel more than 2J miles to water. This 

 would mean permanent watering places 5 miles apart, or one to 

 approximately 13,200 acres. On the range where grama grasses 

 predominate this acreage under fence would carry approximately 

 500 head of cattle. A deep well equipped with pump, windmill, 

 gasoline engine, and storage 'tank costs from $2,500 to $5,000, 

 depending upon depth of well and current prices of materials and 

 equipment. Add to this the investment in land, if privately owned, 

 and the cost of fences and other improvements, and the total capital 

 invested per head of stock would approximate $100. 



As the distance between watering places increases above 5 miles, 

 grazing becomes perceptibly uneven, with a varying degree of over- 

 grazing around water and undergrazing beyond 2^ miles from water. 

 Table I and figure 1 show that on the unfenced range under study 

 the greater part of the vegetation had been killed out for a distance 

 of 1 mile around the watering place, that the total vegetation in the 

 first 2 miles from water is about 50 per cent of what it once was and 

 contains a large number of poor forage species, that on the area 

 represented by the second 2 miles from water the total vegetation 

 is about 73 per cent of what it should be, with a still large percentage 

 of poor forage plants, and that beyond 4 miles from water the range 

 is in about normal condition. 



Obviously, the damage to the range in this case greatly reduces 

 the carrying capacity. The loss of both cows and calves during the 

 summer of 1916 was much greater on the adjoining open range than 

 on the Jornada Reserve, where feed was available within a few miles 

 from water. Cases were observed on the outside range where, after 



