STOCK-POISONING PLANTS OF THE RANGE. Me 
eat everything in their course, and, because of jealousy, will take 
particular pains to get every available plant. If, on the other hand, 
they are kept in loose order and spread widely over the range, they 
Zare much less likely to eat any poisonous plant. : 
This applies equally well to lupine poisoning. When sheep are 
allowed to feed freely upon a lupine patch and are moved without 
any haste, no harmful results will occur. If, however, they are 
massed together and driven in close formation over such a patch, 
they are almost certain to be poisoned if the plants are in pod at the 
time. A large number of specific instances have been noted. At 
one place in Idaho, for instance, where losses have occurred repeatedly, 
it was found that the sheep were trailed in a narrow space through a 
patch of lupine. The remedy in such cases clearly is to see that the 
sheep, when it is necessary to trail them through a patch of lupine, 
‘are drifted rather than driven, and that they are well fed when they 
come upon this locality. It seems probable that intelligent handling 
of bands of sheep may reduce to almost nothing the losses occasioned 
by Zygadenus and lupine. If, however, hungry shéep come in con- 
tact with fields of Zygadenus in the spring, or with fields of lupine 
in the late summer and fall, at a time when the plants are bearing 
pods, fatal results must be expected. | 
In one locality in Oregon an instance of this character occurred in 
the summer of 1914, when something like 4,000 sheep which had been 
driven rather rapidly along a trail where forage was scarce were 
turned into a 10-acre pasture on which there was little but sagebrush 
and lupine, the lupine at that time bemg in pod. About 400 out of 
the 4,000 sheep died. Similar instances might be cited in a large 
number of places. Sometimes successive bands of sheep are driven 
over a trail, several going without any loss whatever; then one band 
may suffer heavily, while others following are not harmed. The 
explanation of these cases seems to be that the first animals going 
over the trail avail themselves of all the useful forage. The succeed- 
ing animals, finding nothing suitable for food, take the poisonous 
plants, which may be ‘wild cherry or lupine, or, in the case of cattle, 
larkspur. The animals which are poisoned may exhaust the supply, 
even of the poisonous plants, so that succeeding bands are not 
poisoned and get across the trail safely provided they do not fall 
from actual starvation. 
It follows from these facts that it is very undesirable to keep sheep 
for any length of time upon the same bedding ground. This has 
been shown to be bad for the range on general principles, but it is 
also rather risky for the sheep themselves, for if animals go out from 
the same place day after day and return at night they will eat every- 
thing that is available along the route. In such cases, if there are 
poisonous plants to be obtained, the animals are pretty apt at some 
