BULLETIN OF THE 



No. 4 



Contribution from the Forest Service, Henry S. Graves, Forester. 



In cooperation with the Bureau of Plant Industry, W. A. Taylor, Chief, 



October 27, 1913. 



THE RESEEDING OF DEPLETED GRAZING LANDS 

 TO CULTIVATED FORAGE PLANTS. 



By Arthur W. Sampson, 

 Plant Ecologist. 



( With prefatory note by Frederick V. Coville, Botanist, in Charge of Economic 

 and Systematic Botany, Bureau of Plant Industry.) 



PREFATORY NOTE. 



In the investigations planned in 1907 for the improvement of 

 overgrazed lands on the National Forests provision was made for 

 experiments in the artificial seeding of areas in which the natural 

 vegetation had been destroyed or had become relatively unproductive. 



In the year 1902 experiments in the reseeding of mountain meadows 

 had been begun by Mr. J. S. Cotton, of the Bureau of Plant In- 

 dustry. A report on these experiments was published in 1908 as 

 Bulletin 127 of the Bureau of Plant Industry, under the title " The 

 Improvement of Mountain Meadows." The conclusions were that 

 the artificial reseeding of these moist areas was practicable and that 

 timothy and redtop were the most promising grasses for such situa- 

 tions. Continued observation of the original plots, by Mr. Cotton, 

 up to the year 1911, confirmed and extended the earlier conclusions. 



The reseeding experiments with cultivated forage plants, begun 

 by the Forest Service in 1907 in cooperation with the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry, are over 500 in number and were located in many 

 kinds of situations. The results are consequently of value as show- 

 ing not only that reseeding is practicable a«nd profitable but especially 

 as showing in detail to what conditions of soil and moisture it is 

 applicable, under what conditions reseeding is bound to fail, what 

 grasses and clovers have been successful and are best suited to par- 

 ticular situations, the best time of year and the best methods of 

 sowing the seed to secure a good stand, and the extent to which 

 the seeded areas must be protected from stock before the young 

 plants can withstand grazing and trampling. 

 5775°— Bull. 4—13 1 



