8 RANGE IMPROVEMENT IN CENTRAL TEXAS. 
entered upon the work, and as a result of his investigations sub- 
mitted two reports covering the same. One, A Report upon the 
~ Grasses and Forage Plants of Central Texas, was published in 1898 as 
Bulletin No. 10, Division of Agrostology, United States Department 
of Agriculture; the other, Cattle Ranges of the Southwest, was pub- 
lished the same year as Farmers’ Bulletin No. 72 by the same Depart- 
ment. The former contained brief accounts of the physical character 
of central Texas, the early and (then) present condition of the ranges, 
and descriptions and general observations upon the distribution and 
economic importance of a large number of the grasses and forage 
plants natural to the region. The latter report was a history of the 
exhaustion of the pasturage of central Texas particularly, with sug- 
gestions for its restoration. These two reports were applicable to a 
territory 200 miles long and 150 miles wide, between the ninety-eighth 
meridian and the western edge of the Staked Plains. As one result of 
these investigations and reports, it was decided to obtain control of a 
body of overgrazed land in central Texas in order to carry on, during 
three years, experiments in methods of practical range improvement. 
In March, 1898, Prof. C. C. Georgeson, then connected with the 
Division of Agrostology, was sent to Texas to select the land. He 
chose 640 acres near Abilene, and Prof. Jared G. Smith was commis- 
sioned to establish the work. In April the writer was appointed spe- 
cial agent in charge of this work, really the first ever undertaken 
either by the General Government or by State experiment stations. 
The report here presented covers the work done under this appoint- 
ment during the period between April 1, 1898, and April 1, 1901. 
The central Texas country, to quote from Farmers’ Bulletin No. 72, 
above referred to, includes all of the counties of Stonewall, Haskell, 
Throckmorton, Fisher, Jones, Shackelford, Nolan, Taylor, Callahan, 
Runnels, Coleman, Tom Green, Concho, and McCulloch, and parts of 
the counties of Kent, Scurry, Mitchell, Coke, San Saba, Brown, East- 
land, Stephens, and Ycung. It embraces a territory about 100 miles 
wide east and west and about 200 miles long north and south. 
The characteristics common to these counties are: 
(1) An open country in the main, with some ‘black-jack, post-oak, 
and live-oak timber on the uplands and ridges. 
(2) A scattering growth of mesquite trees on the lands away from 
the streams, which, together with the timber on the streams, furnishes 
ample firewood and posts for fencing purposes. 
(3) Numerous streams that furnish an abundance of ‘*‘ stock water,” 
fringed along their banks with groves of pecan, elm, hackberry, wild 
china, cottonwood, and other trees. 
(4) An altitude ranging from 1,500 to 1,900 feet above the sea level. 
(5) A climate pure and bracing. 
