THE GRAZING 

 AND RANGE 

 STORY 



■ Depleted 

 Range 



Early studies at the Station had demon- 

 strated that Ephraim Canyon's summertime 

 floods were caused by depletion of high-eleva- 

 tion watersheds. Analysis of the watershed 

 problem quickly revealed that problems of 

 range management and grazing practice were 

 inextricably related to it. How had this up- 

 land range come to deteriorate to such poor 

 condition? 



Settlement of the Sanpete Valley began 

 about 1850, and the following 30 years saw a 

 steady increase in the production of cattle 

 and horses. Extensive and excellent summer 

 range was available on the mountains and was 

 free. Just as the range cattle business reached 

 a peak about 1880, the sheep business began 

 to take hold. Sheep were more profitable for 

 anyone who could obtain enough summer 

 range for them; so there began a bitter strug- 

 gle between sheepmen and cattlemen. Tactics 

 employed by both sides proved detrimental to 

 the range, and its carrying capacity dimin- 

 ished rapidly. Reynolds (1911) graphically re- 

 ported the outcome of the range battles: 



The result was that, between 1888 and 

 1905, the Wasatch Range, from Thistle 

 to Salina, was a vast dust bed, grazed, 

 trampled and burned to the utmost. The 

 timber cover was reduced, the brush 

 thinned, the weeds and grass cropped to 

 the roots, and such sod as existed was 

 broken and worn. The basins at the head 

 of the canyons suffered most, relatively, 

 because they contained the best feed for 

 sheep and were less broken in topog- 

 raphy and more easily accessible. Their 

 scanty timber cover, however, made 

 them particularly liable to removal of 

 the soil by wind action wherever the sur- 

 face cover was broken through and the 

 dry powdered earth exposed. These high 

 mountain pastures, therefore, received 

 not only the most abuse, but have been 

 proportionately longer in recovering 

 from its effects. 



It is no wonder that Sampson and his early 

 colleagues found that the mountain top range 



15 



