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



acre for scattering the seed and 25 cents for harrowing it in, making 

 a total expenditure of $1.15 per acre. 



The production of forage will vary from about one-half to 1^ tons 

 per acre, depending primarily upon the altitude, soil, and climatic 

 conditions. The value of the crop will depend upon local conditions. 

 Even with a minimum of half a ton per acre it is a paying investment 

 to seed. Cotton has shown that where a yield of only half a ton of 

 timothy is secured, an acre of the land upon which his experiments 

 were conducted would carry a 1,200-pound steer a little more than 30 

 days longer than it previously would. Thus he shows that if pasture 

 is valued at 25 cents a head per month, it would, after the first year, 

 give a return of more than 25 per cent on the cost of seeding. Be- 

 sides, if the lands are properly handled so that the areas are not 

 prematurely and too closely grazed, an appreciable forage increment 

 of the introduced species may be expected from natural reseeding. 

 This additional increment may often justify reseeding even when a 

 low forage yield is originally obtained. 



HOW TO GRAZE THE RANGE DURING THE RESTOCKING PERIOD. 



During the period immediately following sowing the young plants 

 ordinarily develop neither a sufficiently elaborate height growth nor 

 strong and deep enough roots to furnish an appreciable increase in 

 the forage and to withstand grazing. In the highest elevations, 

 where the season is short and the temperature low, the seedling plants 

 naturally make slower growth than in lower and warmer localities. 

 Even in the lower elevations grazing is more or less seriously de- 

 structive during the first year. The loss from trampling is heaviest 

 early in the season, but even in the autumn moderate grazing results 

 in tearing and uprooting the young growth to a serious degree. 



Cropping the plants is not disastrous to their development, unless 

 it is done excessively or prematurely, but the seedlings are often 

 pulled up or the roots are partly exposed when grazed, and as a re- 

 sult the plant suffers the following season. The lands seeded should 

 therefore be wholly protected from stock during the first season sub- 

 sequent to seeding. In the second year they may be moderately 

 grazed, but stock should not be allowed on them until fall, when the 

 root system has attained its full development for that season. 



CONCLUSIONS. 



WHERE RESEEDING IS PRACTICABLE. 



The reseeding investigations show that the returns secured from 

 sowing suitable cultivated forage plants on certain ranges fully war- 

 rant the expense. It is not to be presumed, however, that all over- 

 grazed ranges can be successfully reseeded to cultivated plants. On 

 the contrary, it is unquestionably true that existing conditions in the 



