82 BULLETIN 190, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



COOPERATION OF LOCAL FOKCE. 



If tlie work is to be done by a special inspector, the local forest 

 officers should be given a clear understanding of the purposes of the 

 inspection and the methods that Trill be used. 



It is seldom necessary or of advantage, however, for the special 

 inspector to make himself familiar with administrative difficulties 

 before the actual field work is done. A very general knowledge of 

 the nature of these problems and the areas involved in each particular 

 case is all that the inspector should attempt to get previous to the 

 presentation of the essential information and recommendations based 

 upon range conditions. The extent to which these recommendations 

 can be immediately carried out is a matter to be decided by the ad- 

 ministrative officers familiar with the various interests involved in 

 each case. 



The inspecting officer need not be accompanied by an administra- 

 tive officer at all times during the inspection. A day or two with 

 each ranger should be sufficient to give the inspecting officer a good 

 idea of the best routes of travel and such other information as may 

 be of use, and to give the ranger a good understanding of the inspec- 

 tion work. 



PRESENTATION OF DATA. 



It is necessary to separate large areas, such as a forest, into rela- 

 tively small natural units before any satisfactory report or plan can 

 be made. The size of these units depends to a considerable extent 

 upon the intensiveness of the inspection ; but ordinarily the units are 

 made to correspond to the watersheds or portions of watersheds that 

 can be given a name and for which the acreage in each case can be 

 determined with at least a fair degree of defmiteness. The unit of 

 management for sheep is the band allotment ; for cattle it is usually 

 the community allotment. 



Where considerable areas have been covered by inspection, and 

 plans for the redistribution of stock are to be shown graphically, 

 atlas-size sheets on a scale of 2 inches to the mile should be used. 



Allotment boundaries with figures on the number of stock within 

 each allotment, the acreage of each allotment with acres per head, and 

 the permittee's name in each case should be entered directly on 

 the face of the map or on a transparent overlay sheet that will make 

 it possible to show the relation of the allotment boundaries to the 

 topography. 



POISONOUS PLANTS. 



The best figures available show that about 6,000 cattle and 10,000 

 sheep are killed annually from eating poisonous plants on ranges 

 within the National Forests. 



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