area back of the End House. A picket fence 

 and row of trees that had bounded the lawn 

 in front of the first three houses were 

 removed. 



Water for the Station came from a large 

 spring on the face of the cliff southeast of the 

 residences. Since the spring is in a bed of lime- 

 stone, the water was — and still is — very 

 hard. Dr. Sampson recommended building a 

 cistern to supply soft drinking and culinary 

 water, but this was never done. 



To keep horses within a convenient dis- 

 tance, a 50-foot corral was fenced off near the 

 barn. Numerous other fences were built 

 around the headquarters area and around 

 smaller areas, such as the grass and shrub test- 

 ing area, for protection against wandering 

 stock (fig. 6). These fences were uniformly 

 the rail-and-tie type, commonly called "log- 

 and-block" fence. For the most part, these 

 were built of aspen logs 16 feet long with a 

 minimum diameter of 6 inches; ties were 30 

 inches long and 8 to 12 inches in diameter. 

 Aspen suitable for this construction was 

 plentiful and was chiefly used, but logs of 

 conifer species were often intermixed. Many 

 logs have had to be replaced, but the fences 

 are still generally sturdy and effectively pro- 



tect the Station from grazing by bands of 

 sheep in the summer. 



■ First Projects 

 and Personnel 



When the Utah Experiment Station was es- 

 tablished, its number one task was to discover 

 the causes of destructive summertime floods 

 that originated on mountain watersheds; 

 closely related, of course, was expectation 

 that discovery of causes would suggest 

 possible and feasible means for preventing 

 them. Analysis of the watershed problem 

 quickly revealed that problems of grazing and 

 range management were inextricably related 

 to it. 



The initial research program at Utah 

 Experiment Station included nine projects. 

 Director Sampson's annual report of the Sta- 

 tion for 1913 discussed them under the gener- 

 al headings of Grazing and Silviculture. 



A study preliminary to the research on ero- 

 sion included measurements of soil and air 

 temperatures and of precipitation and soil 

 moisture at three elevations throughout the 



Figure 6. — A section of the aspen log fence that surrounds Great Basin Experimental Range and some smaller 

 areas within it. 



6 



