PASTURES ON THE RANGE. 4-)9 



much seed for several years. If the seeds of these 

 grasses are to become so plentiful, as to exercise an ap- 

 preciable influence on range improvement, tliey must be 

 grown under conditions such as will produce large quan- 

 tities of seed. If such renewal should effect im- 

 provement for many years the progress must needs 

 be very slow. Second, the number of grasses which 

 promise any improvement, through substitution is very 

 limited. Only three of tliese at the present time would 

 seem possessed of such promise. These are western 

 rye, blue grama and Russian brome. While in some 

 instances, all three may be an improvement upon range 

 grasses; in others, this is, by no means, an assured 

 fact. To illustrate: It is by no means certain, that 

 western rye grass will prove more suitable for the 

 central range states, than the species of buffalo grass 

 {Buchloe dactyloides) which has grown on them to so 

 great an extent in the past, nor is it an assured fact, 

 that Russian brome would be an improvement over 

 the grasses now on northern ranges, though it should 

 be grown on these. The former would doubtless make 

 a better turf on the central ranges and the latter on 

 those of the ISTorth, but in either case would the moist- 

 ure be enough to sustain the grass growing on such a 

 turf to make it more productive than grasses which oc- 

 cupy the soil? Would the Russian brome furnish the 

 winter grazing desired, in as good form as the bunch 

 grasses, which now grow and cure upon those ranges ? A 

 negative answer to each question must be looked for. 

 Again would Russian brome not grow so thickly under 

 some conditions, that it in turn would require renewal 



