RANGE PRESERVATION AND EROSION CONTROL. 29 



ferred grazing first on the one area an'd then on another, until the 

 entire range has been rejuvenated. After the vegetative cover ha 

 been established, however, the deferred grazing is alternated or ro 

 tated from one portion of the range to another in order to permit 

 of the formation and distribution of an occasional seed crop by 

 means of which the old plants may be replaced. In this way the 

 range is brought back and maintained in its maximum state of pro- 

 ductivity without the loss of a season's forage crop during the period 

 required for re vegetation. 



ARTIFICIAL RESEEDING. 



The lack of fertility and moisture in eroded soils, as pointed out, 

 makes it necessary first to build up the depleted lands before even tin 

 most drought-resistant, well-adapted native perennial species can be 

 reseeded. Cultivated forage plants, even of the most drought- 

 resistant kinds, are more exacting in their requirements of plant 

 foods and soil moisture than native species; consequently artificial 

 reseeding can be recommended as a paying proposition only where 

 the soil of mountain range lands is above average in fertility and 

 where the moisture conditions are favorable to growth throughout 

 the summer season. Incipient meadow erosion may in some in- 

 stances be held back by seeding to cultivated plants of a soil-binding 

 type, like Kentucky bluegrass, but under such conditions the scat- 

 tering of a little seed of aggressive, turf-forming native species on 

 the exposed soil is still better. (See Pis. V and VI.) 



CONTROL AND DISTRIBUTION OF LIVE STOCK. 



One of the most common causes of range depletion, even where the 

 carrying capacity of the lands as a whole has been carefully esti- 

 mated, the season of grazing adjusted, and the deferred and rotation 

 system of grazing adopted, is the excessive grazing of one area and 

 the nongrazing or very light cropping of another as the result of 

 poor distribution of stock, improper salting, and faulty handling of 

 the stock, especially sheep. 



There is a tendency among cattle and horses to drift to and con- 

 gregate on the more elevated plateaus, though the feed may be at 

 its best at lower elevations. While they may not reach the moun- 

 tain ranges for some time after growth has started, far more ani- 

 mals may remain on certain lands than can be grazed without injury 

 to the vegetation. In the meantime the forage at lower elevations 

 dries up and becomes less palatable, the temperature becomes too 

 high for the stock to make maximum gains, and as a consequence 

 much of the forage is wasted. 



