areas suffered from two types of serious dam- 

 age, both resulting from prolonged abuse of 

 the land: valuable forage species had been 

 killed out, and several inches of topsoil had 

 been washed or blown away; this left an ero- 

 sion pavement of comparatively unproductive 

 soil and rock. Of these two types of damage, 

 the loss of topsoil was the more serious be- 

 cause without it reestablishment of vegetation 

 for forage and soil stabilization was difficult. 



Before a decade of the sheep era had 

 passed, the mountain range areas had been 

 damaged so seriously that the era of summer- 

 time floods began. No serious flood had been 

 reported from any canyon in this area prior to 

 1888, but serious floods occurred in Ephraim 

 Canyon and other canyons in the area in nine 

 seasons between 1888 and 1910. The history 

 of flooding in other canyons along the 

 Wasatch Front during that period was similar. 

 Even in Castle Valley on the eastern side of 

 the mountains, the story was the same: agri- 

 cultural and business properties were de- 

 stroyed and fish in the mountain streams were 

 killed. 



By the end of 1901, the situation in San- 

 pete County was becoming desperate. In 

 March 1902, a large area on Manti Mountain 

 was withdrawn from entry, and on May 29, 

 1903, President Roosevelt created the Manti 

 Forest Reserve by proclamation. Less than 5 

 months later, the Commissioner of the Land 

 Office ordered all sheep removed from the 

 western slope of the mountains before the 

 start of the following grazing season. He also 

 ordered the supervisor of the Forest Reserve 

 to prohibit all grazing of cattle, horses, and 

 sheep on some 8,830 acres in the uplands of 

 the several forks of Manti Canyon. This strict 

 closure was in effect for five grazing seasons. 



The drastic action paid off: Manti Canyon 

 has had no serious flood since August 1902 

 (Reynolds 1911). Seven years later, both 

 Ephraim and Six Mile Canyons, which had 

 been overgrazed for 20 years after 1882, were 

 flooded severely; but Manti Canyon was not 

 affected. In 1909, after representations by 

 many stockmen, the Forest Service permitted 

 grazing in the area by cattle and horses at the 

 rate of one head for each 30 acres, or a total 

 of about 300 head. 



■ Searching for 

 Better Range 

 Management 



Temporary exclusion of stock from moun- 

 tain rangelands was all very well as an emer- 

 gency measure, but the Utah livestock indus- 

 try could not tolerate the locking up of high- 

 elevation summer range as a permanent ar- 

 rangement; so the stockmen began to put 

 pressure on Forest officers to permit summer 

 grazing on National Forest lands. Forest of- 

 ficers were thus caught between their respon- 

 sibility to care for the rangelands within their 

 jurisdiction and their understandable concern 

 for the welfare of the stockmen. From all the 

 confusion and turmoil, though, one idea 

 emerged with increasing force and clarity: 

 better grazing management was necessary 

 both for preservation and improvement of the 

 rangelands and for continuation of the live- 

 stock industry. 



Development of satisfactory grazing prac- 

 tices on public lands has been beset by numer- 

 ous and varied problems. Fundamental was 

 development of a program that would give 

 vegetation the greatest chance to grow con- 

 sistent with the profitable handling of large 

 numbers of livestock. From the beginnings of 

 range research, many workers have felt a 

 strong sense of urgency. This has resulted 

 partly from realization that millions of acres 

 had been seriously depleted and that other 

 millions of acres were constantly threatened; 

 but many persons did not — and still do 

 not — realize that depletion usually is an ir- 

 reversible process; so they optimistically as- 

 sumed that areas damaged by overgrazing, 

 trampling, and erosion could eventually be re- 

 stored to their original maximum produc- 

 tivity. But the unpleasant fact is that topsoil 

 once lost is lost forever. 



The question of "range readiness" for graz- 

 ing has long been thorny. Many stockmen 

 thought — some still do — that range was 

 ready for grazing when new growth of grass 

 amounted to no more than 2 or 3 inches. But 

 study of life histories of many grasses demon- 

 strated that these key species should have 

 about 6 inches of new growth before stock 



16 



