14 EANGE IMPROVEMENT IN ARIZONA. 



Pedro Valley where now 3,000 can not find sufficient forage for proper growth 

 and development. If instead of 40,000 head 10,000 had been kept on this range, 

 it would in all probability be furnishing good pasture for the same number to-day. 

 Very few of these cattle were sold or removed from the range. They were sim- 

 ply left there until the pasture was destroyed and the stock then perished by 

 starvation. 



10. Yes, I will do so gladly. Object lessons of this kind will prove conclusively 

 that overstocking, not drought, has made our country a desert. 



C. H. Bayless, Oracle, Ariz. 



FEED ON THE RANGE. 



While each vallej^ in the Territory has some characteristics dis- 

 tinctly its own, and while there is a great difference in the extent to 

 which overpastiiring has been carried on, there is still a certain simi- 

 larity which is characteristic of the entire southern portion, namely, 

 the preponderance during certain seasons of the year of weedj^ plants 

 that would not ordiriarilj^ be considered fit food for cattle. During 

 the year five typical valleys have been visited, namely, the Gila, 

 Salt River, Santa Cruz, San Pedro, and Sulphur Spring. The oppor- 

 tunities for observation in the first two named were very meager, but 

 still sufficient to bear out the testimony of several ranchers, that the 

 only i)asturage of any account in these two valleys during a large 

 portion of the year consists of "browse." The main stock food on 

 the open range appears to be derived from the mesquit and sage 

 brushes {Atriplex spp.). These are supplemented in the winter and 

 spring by weed}^ growths, and in the fall by annual grasses of transi- 

 tory value. In the Santa Cruz Valley conditions are much the same 

 on the open range, but in the Sulphur Spring Valley, which has a 

 greater altitude, as well as a more copious precipitation, the peren- 

 nial grasses still thrive. In some portions of this valley the natural 

 conditions are such that the ranchers are able to control the range in 

 such a manner as to protect it. No finer object lesson could be 

 desired than the one furnished on the Sierra Bonita ranch, owned by 

 Col. H. C. Hooker. This is located at the head of the vallej^, and the 

 range is so situated between the Graham Mountains on the east and 

 the Galiuro Mountains on the west that the entrance of cattle from 

 neighboring ranches is easil}' prevented. Under such conditions, 

 accompanied hy good management, the range has been kept in a very 

 good condition, compared with all the other portions of the region 

 w^hich the wa^iter has visited. On this range large quantities of native 

 grass are cut for hay. In one stack the following were recognized : 

 Everlasting grass [Eriocliloa punctata)^ E. aristata, Chloris elegans, 

 Eragrostis neornexicana, vine mesquite {Panicum ohtusum), Aristida 

 spp. (in small quantities), Arizona millet {ChaetocJiIoa composita), 

 blue grama {Bouteloua oUgosfachya), low grama (B. polystachya), 

 and Andropogon torreyanus. These, together with two or three 

 species of Sporoholus (saccaton grasses) and the cultivated Johnson 



