"bible" for range managers at that time be- 

 cause no other texts were available. Of course, 

 with the passage of time and the proliferation 

 of college courses in range management, the 

 number of books on the subject also in- 

 creased. 



The early plant studies, begun as part of 

 the projects in natural and artificial reseeding, 

 developed into rather elaborate studies of 

 fundamental plant behavior that extended the 

 bounds of early ecological knowledge. These 

 have been discussed already in the section 

 "Ecological Endeavors." 



To a degree, what happened in the de- 

 velopment of range management was paral- 

 leled by the development of studies of water- 

 sheds, their management and maintenance. 

 Treatments and studies of Watersheds A and 

 B and of the nearby Carrying Capacity Pas- 

 ture established beyond question the neces- 

 sity for having certain minimal vegetal cover 

 on high-elevation rangeland to prevent over- 

 land flow, flooding, and erosion following 

 typical high-intensity summer storms. Princi- 

 ples discovered by study on the Wasatch Pla- 

 teau were demonstrated effectively by Reed 

 W. Bailey and others in treatment of the Davis 

 County watersheds after disastrous mud-rock 

 floods in the decade of the 1930's. The work 

 at Farmington, like that at Ephraim, has gen- 

 erated considerable publication, and the Davis 

 County Experimental Watershed has been 

 visited by hundreds of scientists from the 

 United States and numerous other countries 

 who needed to learn fundamentals of flood 

 prevention. We cannot say certainly whether 

 development of the science of watershed man- 

 agement preceded the development of range 

 management, but we may observe a certain 

 paralleling. In central Utah, realization of the 

 problem of watershed management appears to 

 have preceded realization that range manage- 

 ment was the key to its solution. 



The management of mountain rangeland 

 for the benefit of wildlife or for use by both 

 wildlife and stock might appear to be a 

 project of more recent origin. However, it was 

 in the thinking of range management people 

 by the decade of the 1940's. In his presiden- 

 tial address at the second annual meeting of 

 the American Society of Range Management, 

 Joseph F. Pechanec said, "One of the greatest 

 challenges we have is to determine how by re- 



search, and to prove by practice that grazing 

 livestock and big game in our forests and on 

 our grasslands need not necessarily be damag- 

 ing to the land, ruinous to the watersheds, 

 and destructive of civilizations." Wildlife man- 

 agement, like range management and animal 

 husbandry, has found its way into college cur- 

 ricula. As hunting pressures and interest in all 

 forms of wildlife have increased, so has the 

 need for improvement of wildlife habitat; 

 hence the economic and political pressure for 

 maintenance and improvement in game range. 

 Study of game range and devising means for 

 its improvement have been pioneered at the 

 Great Basin Station, and application of the re- 

 sults of these studies has been rapid and suc- 

 cessful, as has been mentioned above. 



Continuing ecological studies at the Great 

 Basin Station understandably have had impor- 

 tant use in National Forest administration. 

 What has been learned about total range, 

 about condition and trend criteria, and about 

 characteristics of numerous range plants has 

 influenced policy in range administration. It 

 has made the determination of the grazing 

 capacity of allotments a matter of informed 

 judgment and skill rather than a haphazard 

 rule-of-thumb procedure. These studies have 

 enabled Forest Service personnel and others 

 to judge with some accuracy when grazing 

 may safely begin in spring and when, in sum- 

 mer or fall, grazing should be stopped. Results 

 of these studies have been used in training 

 young foresters, and publication of these re- 

 sults by the Forest Service and in professional 

 and trade journals has disseminated this infor- 

 mation far beyond the borders of the United 

 States. 



Although much research at the Great Basin 

 Station could be classified as "basic" or 

 "fundamental," the studies have all been ori- 

 ented to practical use. The information de- 

 veloped at the Great Basin Station has been 

 applied in conservation of a great natural re- 

 newable resource, in determination of Forest 

 Service policy for the administration of range 

 areas and watersheds, and in training young 

 foresters in certain fundamentals of their job. 

 Research at the Great Basin Station has been 

 anything but a narrow, restricted, "ivory 

 tower" affair; rather it has been as wide open 

 as the sunny hillsides and plateaus on which it 

 has been done. 



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