PREFACE. 



This paper of Dr. Griffiths is the first report on experiments with 

 grasses and forage i^lants conducted b}^ the Department of Agriculture 

 through this office in cooperation with the Agricultural Experiment 

 Station of Arizona, located at Tucson. The report contains an outline 

 of the experiments undertaken on the tract of public land set aside 

 by the President of the United States for the use of the Secretary of 

 Agriculture in this work. The existing conditions and the present 

 character of the forage supi^ly on the ranges is fulh' described. The 

 urgent needs of the stockmen for better range conditions are clearly 

 set forth. The publication of this report now will be most timely, as 

 it brings before the public questions of the greatest importance to one 

 of the largest interests of this country — the raising of live stock. 

 While there are many forage problems of great importance which are 

 now being worked out through this Office, there is none, we believe, 

 of greater importance or more general interest than that of range 

 improvement. The free-range system has led to the ruthless destruc- 

 tion of the native grasses which once covered the magnificent pasture 

 lands of the West, and the time has now come when active measures 

 must be adopted to remedj' the evils that have resulted from overstock- 

 ing and mismanagement. It is evident that laws for the proper control 

 and preservation of the ranges are not only essential to the stock inter- 

 ests, but also to the general welfare of the count^5^ The matter is of as 

 much importance to the irrigation farmer as to the cattle man, for the 

 gullying of river channels during recent years, and the cutting of deep 

 gorges in every slight depression, destroying the tillable lands, are 

 directly traceable to the influence of close grazing. 



Prof. R. H. Forbes, director of the Arizona Agricultural Experiment 

 Station, in an exceedinglj' valuable and interesting paper on the 

 subject of "The open range and the irrigation farmer," read at the 

 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 

 held in Denver the present season, and which was published in The 

 Forester, made the following most suggestive notes in relation to 

 range improvement, which we venture to quote here : 



The objects of range study are, in the first place, to demonstrate economic 

 methods for the improvement and reclamation of the great areas of devastated, 

 worn-out grazing lands of the semiarid regions, and, finally, to suggest such 

 administration of the country thus reclaimed, or the yearly decreasing areas of 



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