DRY-FARMING CONGRESS, WICHITA, 1914 



75 



study relative to range and pasture management as compared with the 

 vast amount of study given to the feeding end of production. 



The gross measure of the improvement, as a result of this constructive 

 policy is partly shown by the fact that for the National Forest range as a 

 whole, the average range unit has been reduced from 57.6 acres in 1907 

 to 50.45 acres in 1914, or, in other words, a gross increase of 14 percent 

 in the number of stock grazed. 



This increase, however, does not adequately represent the actual im- 

 provement. Instead of being left in an overgrazed condition in the fall 

 the range, with few exceptions, has been greatly improved and is now left 

 in condition for maximum production the following year; stockmen are 

 now turning off beef and mutton direct from many ranges where formerly 

 only feeders and frequently poor feeders were produced; and the areas 

 of forest and watershed needing it are given adequate protection. 



For National Forest conditions in the past, it would be difficult to state 

 which one of the constructive lines of improvement discussed has been 

 most important in building up the range and increasing the meat production 

 per given acreage. Each step was important and preceded the others 

 naturally in the order given. 



The area of new range to be developed, however, has materially de- 

 creased and the adjustment of the number of stock to what the range in 

 its existing condition will carry is largely accomplished. 



In future management, therefore, the major advancement will be 

 brought about by perfecting the methods of handling the stock and by 

 perfecting the system of grazing each area so as to secure the fullest 

 possible use and at the same time give the vegetation a chance to maintain 

 a vigorous plant constitution and reseed itself naturally. 



It is along these lines that the range investigations carried on by the 

 Forest Service in cooperation with the Bureau of Plant Industry have been 

 concentrated and have done most toward the upbuilding. 



Since the members of the Congress are, perhaps, most directly in- 

 terested in the management of range, largely under fence, within the 

 short grass and bluestem territory, some detail of the experience and 

 results of the Service, both experimental and under practical application, 

 in reseeding depleted range and maintaining it in a state of maximum 

 production without loss of forage through non-use, will be of greater inter- 

 est and more directly applicable to the conditions in this territory than any 

 other phase of management. 



Obviously, to bring back depleted range to normal or maximum pro- 

 ductiveness it must be seeded, either artificially to forest species, seed of 

 which is available on the market, or it must be so managed as to secure 

 natural reseeding with the existing native vegetation of value as forage. 



Beginning with 1907 the immediate appeal from every locality of the 

 National Forests was for seed to plant artificially, for the reason that to 

 secure natural reseeding promised slow results. 



Many areas were so badly denuded that revegetation by natural re- 

 seeding appeared to be impossible, and at best natural reseeding, it was 



