FOR BROADCAST USE ONLY 



ANNOUNCMMT ; Now for another visit with some of Uncle Sam's Naturalists of 

 the United States Department of Agriculture, We get out in the wilds with 

 these naturalists every other week at this same time 



We've been talkiiig about the woods and the wide open spaces; about 

 the birds, and the animals, and the insects; p.bout the trees and the grasses, 

 and the woods. But Mr. William A. Dayton, of the range forn^e investigations 

 of the United States Forest Service, reminds us we haven't said anything about 

 the shrubs. 



Shrubby, woody vine, and small tree vegetation is not of course, as ^ 

 much value for forage for livestock as the grasses, but Mr, Dayton says, it is 

 of enormous importance, esTDecially to our livestock industry under western range 

 conditions. He says it is impossible to say how many separate species of these 

 shrubby plants there are in the United States, or even in the West, 



However, for the country as a whole, Mr, Dayton declares the number runs 

 easily into the thousands. In the past 22 years, about 1,000 species of shrubs, 

 undershrubs, and woody vines have been collected on national forest ran^tes and 

 studied by forest officers, and more are being discovered every year. 



In fact, Mr, Dayton points out, there are large areas of our national 

 forests and other lands of the West that are still practically unexplored 

 botanically. 



And, when you come to think of it, western shrubs, are enormously varied 

 in their distribution. You find them everywhere from the seashore, or even 

 below sea level in such places as Death Volley, up to timber line, and even 

 at the very limit of vegetation on our high mountains. You find them in the 

 driest spots that vegetation can last, and in the wettest of water-lo^^ed bogs. 

 Very few forms of plant life can stand as much alkali or salt as certain shrubs, 

 yet you also commonly meet various bushes in the richest hunius. 



There are millions of acres of the chaparral types of plants in 

 California alone. In parts of the Great Basin and the Pjocky Mountain region 

 generally you often come across vast stretches marked with sagebrush as fir 

 as the eye can reach. And the tremendous wastes of our southwestern desert 

 support any n-ombcr of highly specialized typos of shrubby plants. 



Often they grow in pure or nearly pure stands. More commonly, however. 



