24 BULLETIN" 575, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



time to get hold of them, with disastrous results. This has been 

 very clearly shown in a case of Menziesia (laurel) poisoning, in 

 which animals were bedded on a forest range for five nights in the 

 same place; the animals were safe for the first two nights, but after 

 that there was heavy loss. At the same time a band that was 

 wandering about without a herder in the same region was uninjured. 

 It can not be too strongly impressed upon persons handling sheep 

 upon the range that the sheep should be allowed to graze as far as 

 possible under strictly natural conditions. By this is meant that 

 they should be allowed to go freely, separated from each other, 

 moving slowly, and not allowed to graze over and over upon the 

 same ground. The so-called blanket system of herding, which 

 is advocated by the Forest Service, in addition to the fact that it 

 aids in the conservation of the range, will also without any doubt 

 reduce the losses from poisonous plants to a minimum, if it does not 

 entirely do away with them. 



CONCLUSION. 



In conclusion, it should be stated that, generally speaking, very 

 little must be expected from medicinal remedies to reduce the losses 

 from poisonous plants. It is true that such remedies will help in the 

 case of locoed animals and will save life in the case of larkspur poison- 

 ing of cattle. Generally speaking, however, the reliance should be 

 placed not in remedies, but upon prevention. Animals must be so 

 well cared for that they will not wish to eat poisonous plants. Some- 

 thing may be done in the way of eradication, as was indicated under 

 the discussion of larkspur. Larkspur can doubtless be eradicated 

 within a limited area. The locoes in pastures can be eradicated with 

 very little difficulty, but upon the open range dependence must be 

 placed upon avoidance rather than eradication. Zygadenus, too, does 

 its harm upon the open range, and there it occurs in such large 

 masses that eradication is impossible. In the matter of Cicuta, farmers 

 might, without doubt, accomplish much by digging it up along their 

 irrigation ditches, and this practice is usual in a great many localities. 

 But in the main the losses from poisonous plants must be prevented 

 by careful handling of the herds, remembering always that animals 

 are not likely to eat poisonous plants by preference, but that under 

 starvation conditions they may be driven to the use of such material 

 for forage with most disastrous results. 



o 



