8 CIRCULAR 8 4, U. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGRICULTURE 



Because stock water is often available and the vegetation remains 

 green longer than on other areas, these bottoms are best suited to 

 summer grazing. Early spring use, particularly when the soil is 

 wet. may cause damage through trampling. 



The rough parts of the northern Great Plains, sometimes called 

 badlands, comprise another important part of the range (fig. 5). The 



t*--jr 



Figure 5. — The rough parts of the northern Great Plains are sparsely vegetated 

 and are chiefly valuable as winter range. 



topography is rough and broken with precipitous slopes and sharply 

 cut canyons. The soil is heavy, often alkaline, and locally may be 

 rather rocky. It is often referred to as "gumbo" and extensive areas 

 may be called gumbo ranges. Because of the tightness of the soils 

 and the steepness of slopes, water absorption is slow and runoff is 

 very rapid. On some sites, moisture seldom penetrates deeper than 

 a few inches. The very sparse vegetation consists chiefly of perennial 

 grasses, but browse is often sufficiently abundant to convey the aspect 

 of a browse range. Bluestem and bearded bluebunch wheatgrass, 

 along with blue grama and alkali sacaton, are the most important 

 grasses on these rough areas. Forbs such as scarlet globemallow, 

 dwarf phlox, and evening-primrose make up a small percentage of the 

 vegetation. The remainder is composed of big sagebrush, black 

 greasewood, greenplume rabbitbrush, common winterfat, and shad- 

 scale saltbush. 



These browse species, particularly winterfat and saltbush, have an 

 unusually high protein content (2) during the whiter, when many 

 grasses and other species are low in protein and generally high in 

 lignin content. Because of this and the protection that the hills 

 provide against storms, such areas have a particular value for late 

 fall or winter grazing. Scarcity of stock water usually prevents 

 extensive use of these rough portions of the range in summer, and 

 steep topography, plus the sticky gumbo soil, makes them generally 

 unsuitable for extensive early spring use. 



