36 RANGE IMPROVEMENT IN CENTRAL TEXAS. 
the beginning of the three years’ term, it would mean that it would be 
10 per acre at the end of the term. In other words, if the value of 
the 640 acres, for pasture purposes, should be (at $5 per acre) $3,200, 
it would beat the end of the three years’ term (at $10 per acre) $6,400. 
If these figures do not quite satisfy stockmen and farmers having 
pasture lands greatly needing to be improved, the additional sugges- 
tion is offered that if, on the 640 acres, at the beginning of the three 
years’ term, it should be practicable to hold only 40 head of mixed 
cattle, in the proportion of 1 to every 16 acres, and at the end of 
the first year the gain in range capacity to sustain stock should be 
only 333 per cent, it would mean that during the next year about 53 
head of cattle could be held on the same 640 acres. If the gain during 
the second year should be a further 33% per cent, it would mean that 
about 70 head could be held in the pastures the next year. If the gain 
during the third year should be as great proportionately as during the 
first and second year, it would mean that about 93 head could be held 
at the end of three years on the pastures that three years before could 
only support 40 head. How can central Texas stockmen and farmers 
make money more certainly or more rapidly than by working system- 
atically and patiently on the lines suggested? They have their own 
horses and will not have to hire teams to pull their harrows. They 
have laborers hired by the year, or they can do their own work, 
hence will not have to pay out anything extra for having the work 
done. The best times for doing the work (in the early spring or the 
early autumn months) are the seasons when such work can be done at 
odd times, when other work on the farms or ranches will not be 
pressing for attention. 
Is it worth the effort? Do the probable large gains justify the cost? 
Perhaps it will be more prudent to make a trial test on a smaller 
scale.’ On that idea the suggestion is offered that those having pas- 
tures needing reclamation make such trial tests, beginning next autumn 
or in the following spring. Suppose a small pasture be fenced off from 
the general pasture, and it be cultivated one year, and during the year 
it be grazed and rested alternately in periods of, say, three months, the 
pasture to do double duty during the periods it is pastured. If at the 
end of one year, the seasons having been normal, there be a manifest 
gain in the capacity of the pasture to sustain stock equal to 30 to 40 
per cent, and if the other and larger pasture shall not have, during 
the same period, gained in such capacity, will not such results clearly 
justify a second year’s experimental work, with the same small pasture, 
on similar lines? And if that year’s work shall result as satisfactorily 
as that of the previous year, will the result not fairly demonstrate the 
advisability of still another effort to restore the pasture to its original 
capacity for sustaining stock ? 
It is confidently believed that those who will take such work in hand 
