﻿2 BULLETIN 4, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The percentage of National Forest lands suited to seeding with 

 cultivated grasses is small, but the total area is sufficiently large to 

 make such seeding an important means of increasing the grazing 

 resources of the Forests and to warrant the systematic adoption of 

 the practice of seeding for all the areas to which it is adapted. — 

 Fredrick V. Coville. 



THE RANGE PROBLEM. 



As anyone familiar with the West knows, unregulated usa of the 

 open range has produced a marked deterioration in the forage crop. 

 The most obvious method of providing for range improvement is to 

 close overgrazed areas against stock until the range has regained a 

 normal condition through natural revegetation. This, however, 

 means both a very serious interference with the stockmen who are 

 deprived of use of the range and the waste of the forage which grows 

 during the time that the range is closed. Moreover, in many cases 

 such changes have been produced in the range that betterment takes 

 place very slowly. The most valuable forage plants have either been 

 almost eliminated or had the balance so turned against them and in 

 favor of less desirable plant growth that they can not readily recover 

 the ground they have lost. 



The grazing problem is the problem of getting the largest possible 

 use out of the range. This means making the range grow the best 

 possible crop of forage, taking into consideration quality as well 

 as quantity, while making this crop available at the times when 

 the stockman needs it. Evidently the problem has two sides. One 

 side is the study of forage production. The other side is the devis- 

 ing of methods of regulating use of the range by stock so as to 

 utilize the largest possible amount of the forage produced with the 

 least possible reduction of the power to grow forage while conform- 

 ing to the practical requirements of the stock industry. 



In dealing with depleted ranges the first necessity is to learn how 

 the reestablishment of a growth of valuable forage plants can be 

 brought about. Two possibilities are open. The first is that of 

 securing revegetation through natural reseeding. The second is that 

 of replenishing the growing stock through the establishment of a 

 growth of cultivated or introduced forage plants. 



INVESTIGATIONS OF THE NATIONAL FOREST RANGE PROBLEM BY 

 THE FOREST SERVICE. 



On the National Forests the amount of grazing has been regulated 

 with careful consideration for the condition of the range. Very 

 badly overgrazed areas have in some cases been entirely closed to 

 use. Where conditions are less serious the allotments of stock have 

 been cut down to the point deemed necessary in order to permit the 



