THE KANGE. 25 



of feed than the mesa, has by no means its entire surface covered with 

 vegetation. The shrubbery has been spoken of elsewhere. The black 

 sage (Artemisia tridentata and A. arbuscula) growing in scattered 

 bunches, have here, unlike the mesa region, a considerable growth of 

 scattering bunches of grass between them. The grasses are nearly all 

 of the perennial varieties, and consist mainly of blue grasses, sheep 

 fescue, and wheat grass, all of which grow in bunches and form but 

 little, if any, turf. Pis. I, fig. 1; II, fig. 1; IV, fig. 1; V, figs. 1 and 2; 

 VI, fig. 1, and XIII, fig. 1, give fairly typical representations of the 

 grazing areas on the uplands. 



A careful study of the forage plants of one of the basins of this 

 region, with an equally exhaustive soil study covering a period of nine 

 or ten months and extending from the bottom of the basin to the top 

 of the mountains, would prove not only of great scientific interest, 

 but would undoubtedly throw very important light upon many 

 features of the forage problems as they exist throughout this general 

 region. As a suitable locality we might mention the Alvord Desert 

 basin, where the distance from the desert lake bed in the bottom of the 

 basin to the line of perpetual snow in Steins Mountains is not too 

 great to be covered on foot in a single day, while extensive deposits 

 of borax are located in the same depression about 20 miles away. A 

 thorough correlation of soil conditions with the development of forage 

 plants could be easily made here and would doubtless apply to large 

 areas of country. A study of the conditions best suited to the devel- 

 opment of the characteristic forage plants could easily be made, and 

 the role of the shrubb}^ vegetation in the economy of stock raising 

 could be accurately determined, a point upon which there is altogether 

 too little accurate information at the present time. A comparative 

 stud} 7 of the native clovers upon newty irrigated sagebrush soil and 

 their native habitats in the lower, boggy, and almost peaty areas, and 

 the rapidity of their spread into newly irrigated areas contiguous to 

 their natural habitats, would be very instructive. A comprehensive 

 study of the condition under which these valuable forage plants develop 

 to the best advantage would be of great economic importance. 

 Whether they develop best when growing alone or in combination 

 with more rigid plants, which assist in their support, and the quantity 

 of feed which they produce could be determined here by observation 

 of their habits under natural conditions. No better locality could be 

 selected for the study of the specific distinction of two of the valuable 

 groups of range grasses, namely, the sheep fescues and that group of 

 blue grasses closely related to Buckley's blue grass. A question of 

 much economic interest to this region, as well as to all that grazing 

 area to the south and southeast, relates to the value of the early weedy 

 plants as cattle food. A knowledge of these is necessaiy — what they 

 are and to what extent they are eaten by cattle and sheep. But little 

 investigation has been made of the desert ranges in spring and early 



