TATES 



,-D'EPARTMENT 

 OP AGRICULTURE 



V 



U'JCL.-: aAII'S NATURALISTS. 



I-NlFORMATiq>I^ 



Friday, September 12, 1930'. 



ANNDir.ic: 



Our Wilds man is back from another visit with Uncle Sam's 



naturalists. Tliis time he is going to come out from under the trees, and 

 toll us what a Forester has told hijj about the grasses which carpet the 

 range cuid furnish feed for cattle — That is, some time they do, and some time 

 they don't. All right, Mr. Wildsraan, we are ready to go to the roots of 

 this matter 



it(]ti4i)tii«i:(> 



Tliat ' s the way v/ith some folks. They think of pasture and range 

 grass>js as just so much feed for cattle. And at that, they often ovcr- 

 ostL-iatc the quaintity But more of that later. 



You might say a lot of people don't even really think of the plants, 

 they f.^inl': of the cattle. At the first signs of green in the spring, they 

 often •■:urn the cattle out on the range. As long as the cattle seen to be 

 doing well, they don't worry about the plants. They seem to figure that if 

 the grass is grazed a little short, then they can take the cattle off, the 

 grass or other forage plants will grow ri^t back; and that will be all there 

 will be to it. 



According to Mr. TT, R. Chaplin®, the senior inspector of grazing in 

 the Uiited States Forest Service, this big question of grass is not so 

 simple. Yet it is a whole lot more interesting. 



The plants are living, growing, struggling parts of the wild life on 

 the range. They have their ups and downs. They have their keen competition 

 one Ydth the other. There are also different types or groups of plants on 

 different kinds of soils. 



Let's leave the cattle and sheep out of the picture for the present. 

 The plant life on the range fits the soil on the range. But the soil changes. 

 The plants change it. The plants themselves, by adding humus to the soil when 

 they rot, change the physical and chemical make-up cf the soil. They prepare 

 the way for new and higher forms of plant life. There is a more or less 

 regular replacement of one type of plants by another. 



Let's start trith the bare rock. Nothing but the lichens and mosses 

 and other low, less valuable forms of plant life can get a start there. 

 Occasionally, in an extra thick cushion of moss or in the crack of a rock, 

 an early-maturing annual herb will find its way. Those first herbs must be 

 able to grow in the shortest possible time with the least moisture. The 

 sparsely scattered herbs are the next step up in wild plant life. 



No\7 we come to the first-weed stage. The soil is still ver;- poor, 

 of course, There'^ very little moisture in it. Most of the plants are 



