GRAZING RANGES IN SOUTHERN ARIZONA. 23 



HAY-CUTTING OPERATIONS. 



STATEMENT OF CONDITIONS AND METHODS. 



For the past five seasons — 1910-1914, inclusive — hay cutting has 

 been done in the protected area of the reserve and more or less com- 

 plete records have been obtained. It must be kept in mind that hay 

 cutting is possible over only a part of the protected area, and all of 

 the hay cutting has been done upon selected areas where the condi- 

 tions were the most favorable of any to be found in the field. Con- 

 sidered as a hay crop to be harvested, the forage produced on the 

 reserve is at best so light as to raise some doubt as to the advisability 

 of cutting it. And the conditions under which the work must be 

 clone are very unfavorable. Of the whole reserve, as indicated on 

 the map, not over 20 sections of the ungrazed area receive enough 

 summer rainfall to produce forage in sufficient quantity to be worth 

 the cutting. And over much of this area the ground is too rocky or 

 steep or broken or bushy to be mown. No water is available at any 

 place inside the large field. 



It f oUow^s that to do any hay cutting at all one must select an area 

 of good grass land that is fairly level and free from rocks, bushes, 

 and cacti. To this place must be brought the men, machinery, tools, 

 wagons, etc., necessary for the work, and all the camp equipment and 

 food necessary for the crew, both men and animals. Water for all 

 camp purposes and all the animals, as well as grain feed, must be 

 liauled to the camp, usually a distance of several miles. In nearly 

 every case this outfit and crew have been brought from 15 to 20 miles, 

 and most of the hay has been hauled the same distance (PL VII, 

 figs. 1 and 2). And the roads of the region are nowhere very good 

 for heavy hauling. It was impossible to bale the hay, on several oc- 

 casions, because no baler was available. In a few cases the only 

 available method of weighing the hay was by steelyards, and nearly 

 all of the weighing was done, a bale at a time, on a small platform 

 scale. In some of the larger cuttings the weight reported as the 

 total is computed from the total number of bales and the average 

 weight per bale of 15 to 25 bales actually weighed. The stacked hay 

 was measured in all cases except two and the weight computed from 

 the volume, which was obtained by the F W L^ rule and a weight 

 factor to be explained later. The areas cut over were always quite 

 irregular, but their acreage was obtained with a fair degree of ac- 

 curacy in nearly every case. With these difficulties to be overcome, 

 and the expenses entailed being limited by the economic possibili- 

 ties of the situation alone, the records given in Table IV are submitted. 



1 See Bureau of Plant Industry Circular 131, entitled " Measuring Hay in Ricks or 

 Stacks," p. 20. 



