22 FORAGE CONDITIONS ON NORTHERN BORDER OF GREAT BASIN. 



Sheep are usually wintered on the desert. They feed at this season 

 to a very large extent on desert shrubbery. Being able to subsist on 

 this kind of a ration better than cattle, renders them much more 

 easily provided for. Indeed, as near as we were able to learn from 

 the herders and ranchers, sheep receive hay for from onl}^ two to four 

 weeks through the entire winter in the southern portion of the area 

 traversed. Being able to subsist on even the black sage {Artemisia 

 tridentata) for a few days, they are much less subject to loss during a 

 season of severe weather, especially as they have a herder with them 

 constantly, who is able to move them from place to place and thus 

 secure the best feed available. One man usually takes care of from 

 2,000 to 3,000 sheep. One herder in the White Horse Mountains 

 informed us that his flock was never fed over two weeks during the 

 winter; others placed the feeding period at four weeks, while we were 

 informed at Ontario that in that vicinity they were often fed some hay 

 for two months. 



The summer feed of both cattle and sheep is obtained from the open 

 range on the foothills and mountains. The sheep wintered on the 

 deserts begin to move upward as soon as the vegetation appears in the 

 spring. They follow the development of the green feed from the foot- 

 hills up to the snowdrifts, and finally work their way down again by 

 easy stages when autumnal storms begin to threaten. The sheep, 

 being close-herded, clear the ground over which they pass of vegetation 

 much more closely than the cattle which run at large with practically 

 no care, and consequently scatter in small herds of six to twelve ani- 

 mals. This, together with the fact that sheep eat plants that cattle 

 will not, constitutes the main distinction between the effect of cattle 

 and sheep on range pastures. If allowed to run at large as cattle 

 do, and consequently scatter in small flocks, as they naturally would, 

 the evil effect of absolutely cleaning off large areas by close grazing, 

 and the pulverizing of extensive tracts of ground in the region where 

 they tramp in closely packed herds during the heat of the day, and 

 still more effectively in the bedding-down places at night, would be 

 largely overcome. But this method of handling sheep could not of 

 course be practiced because of the presence of dogs and wild animals 

 which would in a short time exterminate the flocks. 



The cattle, although allowed to run at large, are looked after to 

 some extent during the summer. They also are kept in the mountains 

 as much as possible. When they return to the lowlands, where they 

 were fed during the previous winter, either on account of short feed or 

 the sheep herder's dog, they are forced up again as soon as their num- 

 bers on the lower areas become at all conspicuous. 



The feeling between the "cattleman" and "sheepman" is here, as 

 in the majority of the open range regions, often a very bitter one. 

 The "sheepman" having a herder to look after the interests of the 

 flock has a decided advantage over the "cattleman," whose interests 



