FORAGE PLANTS. 51 



and when kept cropped it makes a good quality of pasturage. It is also often present 

 on the lower meadows. 



Oak-like hair grass (Deschampsia calycina). — Like the last species, this has a wide 

 habitat, ranging from the lower bottoms to the higher mountains. It was found in 

 abundance on the White Horse Ranch, where there were acres of it. Although 

 rather short, it had be°n cut for hay in places. It furnishes pasture early in the 

 summer, but being a rapidly growing annual, it dies and dries up early in the season, 

 and is then not relished by stock. It had all died and dried up some time before we 

 visited the region on the 1st of August. 



Slender hair grass {Deschampsia elongata). — Decidedly a mountain grass. While 

 not of nearly as much importance as the tufted hair grass, it furnishes a great deal of 

 feed in low, wet meadows, and especially in the vicinity of mountains, brooks, and 

 springs. 



Salt grass (Distichlis spicata). — This familiar grass on all the Western plains and 

 basin region, while very rigid and wiry, is one of great importance. Its persistent 

 habits of growth, its power to resist close grazing and drought, its very ordinary 

 feeding qualities and its ability to thrive in strongly alkaline soils are qualities which 

 make it a very valuable emergency feed. Were it not for this persistent grass many 

 more cattle would die of starvation than do. It makes a very ordinary feed, but it 

 is this very characteristic that makes it valuable. Were it more highly relished by 

 stock it would probably have been' exterminated long ago. It was a common thing 

 to find it closely cropped all the way from Winnemucca to Ontario. Large herds of 

 cattle were apparently subsisting on this and squirrel tail (Hordeum jubatum) on the 

 open range on the Malheur Lake bottoms in August. 



Giant rye grass (Elymus condensatas) . — This mammoth, erect, usually more or 

 less tufted species is one of the most important grasses of the drier basin bottoms. 

 There are thousands of acres of it fringing the bottom lands and often extending out- 

 ward into the sagebrush areas. PL XIII, fig. 2, shows a characteristic growth of it 

 in the Quinn River Valley, almost hiding a wire fence. It grows on the drier and, 

 according to soil tests, nonalkaline areas. It is very often cut for hay, but more 

 often it is left for winter pasture. It is very valuable in stormy weather, for its 

 habit of growth prevents its being covered with snow. It is claimed by ranchers 

 that it does not stand cutting and close pasturing well. Under these treatments it 

 gets thinner and thinner and eventually disappears. The areas of it are said to have 

 greatly diminished in recent years. Horses fare especially well on it from the middle 

 of July to the middle of September. When allowed to pasture in the fields at this 

 time of the year they live almost entirely on the rich seed supply, roaming over the 

 fields and picking off the heads. Although it is often very badly ergoted, no evil 

 effect is reported on this account. 



Mountain rye grass (Elymus glaucus). — This abundant species of the Rocky 

 Mountain region is common here. It grows scatteringly among the shrubbery in 

 the mountains. 



Wild wheat (Elymus triticoides) . — This is the blue stem of this region, a name by 

 which it is universally recognized by the ranchers. In many respects it is the most 

 important grass of the entire region, and is a very promising species for cultivation. 

 The seed is produced in abundance and is invariably well filled and easily gathered. 

 Its habit of growth is very similar to that of the western wheat grass of the plains 

 region and the quality of the hay produced by the two are probably about equal. 

 There were magnificent crops of it along the Humboldt and Quinn rivers, in the 

 Alvord Desert basin, and on the Malheur Lake bottoms. It grows in rich, non- 

 alkaline, heavy soils, and where properly watered it often yields 2 to 2J tons 

 per acre. It appears to be well adapted to the damming and flooding system of 

 irrigation in vogue here, for it stands submerging to a greater degree than the majority 

 of the native grasses. Large quantities of seed were secured along the Humboldt 



