26 BULLETIN 790, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE. 



the close of the grazing season. No doubt grazing capacity of other 

 ranges has been overestimated on this account and the number of 

 stock increased, to the detriment of the range. 



CONDITION OF THE STOCK. 



Whether grazing capacity of National Forest ranges should be ad- 

 justed to produce fat stock or stock suitable for the feed yards is 

 sometimes in question. The answer depends upon the character of 

 the range and the demand for range to take care of stock for which 

 feed is available locally for the remainder of the year. 



Some National Forest range does not furnish forage suitable for 

 ]3roducing fat stock in the sense of stock ready for the beef and mut- 

 ton market, unless the range is so much understocked that the animals 

 graze largely upon the choice forage and leave the rest. In the stock- 

 man's term this is " topping the range." On some ranges the combi- 

 nation of forage, water, salt, and topography may be such that the 

 dry stock will become fat when the range is stocked as heavily as it 

 should be, p'rovided the beef stock are removed before the last part 

 of the season when the forage is getting low. 



Where more stock are produced and properly provided for during 

 the remainder of the year than can be taken care of on the summer 

 ranges, it is doubtful economy to deprive part of them of range in 

 order to produce maximum gains on others. To stock a range so 

 heavily as to retard the growth of young stock and keep the majority 

 of the breeding stock thin would be unfair to the stock owners and 

 dangerous to the range. If by " feeders " is meant stock in good flesh 

 at the close of the season, the policy of grazing to produce feeders 

 may be justified under conditions where local demand for range and 

 the supply of fall, spring, and winter feed are in excess of available 

 summer range, provided the surplus feed can not be disposed of to 

 advantage except by feeding it to live stock grazed on near-by range. 

 In general^ continued stocking of a range so that the stock will come 

 off in pooi' condition, due to shortage of forage, will result in de- 

 terioratioii of the range. The whole question has dangers, and de- 

 cision slvbuld be made only after careful consideration, keeping in 

 mind fij/st the permanent welfare of the range. Ordinarily, the best 

 policy 4s to stock the range so that beef and mutton will be turned off 

 in thf/ fall unless the range is of a character not suited to producing 



fat -^tock. 

 / 



EFFECT OF GRAZING UPON TIMBER GROWTH ANO WATER SUPPLY. 



Grazing-capacity estimates may have to be adjusted locally to 

 avoid unwarranted damage to timber reproduction or to a watershed 

 on areas where exclusion of gTazing is not deemed necessary, but 

 where the possibility of unwarranted damage is gi'eater than for the 



