other vegetation. Reburning retards the woody 
species and encourages the bracken (fig. 19), resulting 
in a vegetation cover not only of little value for graz- 
ing but also highly inflammable during dry seasons. 
Despite the availability of moderate quantities 
of forage on recently cut-over land and the possi- 
bility of lowering the fire hazard by grazing, use of 
hthis type of land for stock range as been limited to 
dairy cattle and a few sheep turned onto it by 
neighboring farmers and to occasional shipments 
of sheep from ranches east of the Cascade Range in 
summers when the home ranges east of the moun- 
tains were poor because of drought. 
The oak-madrone woodland (fig. 20) and pon- 
derosa pine forests in southern Oregon are less 
dense and their many grassy openings furnish more 
range than is found in other forests of the region. 
Some of these open prairies and hillsides are sup- 
posed to have been burned by the Indians to make 
better hunting, although others are obviously on 
areas unsuited to forest growth because of soil or 
climate. In the Siskiyou Mountains of south- 
western Oregon, the grazing of cattle on such grass- 
covered openings began soon after white settlement 
79 
F 325591 
Ficure 20.—Oak-madrone forest in southern Oregon, where forests of this type and of ponderosa pine have considerable forage value 
and was an important industry up to 20 years ago, 
when heavy grazing had so reduced the forage 
that the cattle were supplanted by sheep and goats. 
Periodic burning in the hope of improving grazing 
has greatly depleted the palatable herbage on these 
areas, resulting in many instances in a brush cover 
typically composed of scrub tanoak, Pacific ma- 
drone, or any of several species of manzanita or 
ceanothus, either unpalatable or of such low palata- 
bility that only goats will browse it. With the 
setting up of fire protection, some of the more 
promising of these areas have been reclaimed by 
conifers. Others cleared for farming and early 
abandoned were reclaimed by conifers prior to 
protection from fire. 
Attempts have been made to seed recently cut- 
over lands or burns to forage plants, especially in 
southwestern Oregon. Seeding by airplane has been 
tried, with orchard grass, ryegrass, and various 
mixtures. As a rule a good stand of grass is ob- 
tained the first year, but the second year the stand 
is much less and the third year it is sparse. In order 
to retain the grass cover it is usually necessary to 
reseed the grass about every 3 years, and then it is 
