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ceeded in a southwesterly direction to the Sandy river. . . . We 

 found no water on the route and not a single blade of grass. . . . 

 We observed a hoar frost and some thin ice (June 16) this morn- 

 ing at sunrise, but by midday the thermometer stood about 82. 

 . . . Saw large herds of buffalo on the plains of the Sandy river, 

 grazing in every direction on the short, dry grass. Domestic 

 cattle would certainly starve here, and yet bison exist and even 

 become fat. . . . Some of our famished animals attempted to 

 allay their insatiable cravings by cropping the dry and bitter 

 tops of the worm-wood with which the plain is strewed." 



In this brief extract we note that the scarcity of grass on the 

 sagebrush plains is reported. The wheat and other grasses are 

 very common to-day but they are in an inconspicuous element 

 of the flora. We can assume that they were not observed or that 

 drought had precluded their growth. The short dry grass on 

 which so many bison grazed was probably alkali grass, Distichlis 

 spicata. This is the typical grassland of the river bottoms to-day. 

 With it there is a sprinkling of giant rye grass, Elymus conden- 

 sa'us and alkali dropseed, Sporobolis airoides. That the sparse 

 desert grass and browse is very nutritious has often been noted. 

 (Hanna 1, Nelson 2) It is a fact familiar to all ranchers. The 

 writer of the diary observed a very salient and significant fact, 

 for herein lies the explanation of the value of desert forage and 

 the resulting important live stock industry in a region that ap- 

 pears to be unfavorable to it under casual observation. The 

 "worm-wood" eaten by the hungry animals was of course the 

 common sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata, everywhere abundant 

 on the plains of the region of to-day as it was then. 



Joel Palmer, a shrewd genial farmer and a former legislator 

 of Indiana, was another leader of the early emigrants. He kept 

 an accurate daily journal and recounts camp experiences in the 

 Green River valley, July 23, 1845. ". . . The road leaves the 

 Green River near our camp and passes over a high and barren 

 country to Black's Fork; this we followed up some four miles 

 and encamped. As upon other streams there is occasionally a 

 grassy bottom, with a little cottonwood and willow brush." 

 How aptly these words apply to the valley of Black's Fork and 

 the surrounding barren uplands. The occasional grassy bottom 

 is the Distichlis spicata community discussed in connection 

 with the earlier diary of Townsend. There is the reference to "a 



