20 FARMERS' BULLETIN 826. 



revegetation of a large percentage of the patches can be accelerated 

 and their grazing capacity possibly increased by seeding them to 

 cultivated forage species. In the more moist situations timothy and 

 Kentucky bluegrass would be the most satisfactory species to use in 

 reseeding. In the drier situations smooth brome-grass and timothy 

 are suggested. Details in regard to how artificial reseeding can be 

 successfully accomplished are given in Department Bulletin No. 4. 



SHEEP GRAZING OF LARKSPUR AREAS ON CATTLE RANGES. 



Since sheep are not poisoned by larkspur, the problem may some- 

 times be solved by running a band of sheep over the poison areas 

 early in the season before the cattle reach them. The success of this 

 method depends largely on whether the sheep will eat the larkspur, 

 whether sheep are available to graze the infested area at the proper 

 time, and whether the infested areas furnish sufficient forage to 

 justify trailing sheep to them. 



Many National Forest users prefer to raise cattle rather than sheep. 

 This will be true in many places until the sheep industry is placed 

 more on a farm basis than it is at present and the large bands 

 handled under present range conditions give way to small numbers 

 of sheep on farms. It is frequently not possible, therefore, to trans- 

 fer large areas of larkspur-infested range from cattle to sheep. 

 Experimental tests have been made, however, in grazing a few sheep 

 on larkspur-infested cattle ranges. 



On a cattle range adjoining a sheep range within the Mono 

 National Forest in Nevada a band of sheep were run with the cattle 

 on the range throughout the season. The larkspur poison areas were 

 grazed closely by the sheep early in the season before the cattle 

 reached them. The sheep were then grazed on portions of the range 

 which the cattle did not ordinarily use. In case there was a second 

 growth of larkspur sufficient to cause probable loss of cattle on any 

 of the infested areas the sheep were grazed over these areas a second 

 time. The larkspur in this case was grazed by the sheep in prefer- 

 ence to many other forage species. As a result, the forage on these 

 ureas which previously had poisoned cattle was transformed into 

 mutton. Furthermore, small areas of range previously unused by 

 the cattle were utilized by the sheep. 



A somewhat similar plan was tried for two years on the Ruby 

 National Forest in Nevada. In two small canyons on separate cattle 

 allotments an annual loss from larkspur poisoning amounted to 

 approximately $800 worth of cattle. Each of these larkspur-infested 

 areas contained about three weeks' feed for a small band of sheep. 



The plan adopted was to place one band of sheep on each area 

 before the cattle drifted to it. The first year the sheep did not graze 



