WESTERN SNEEZE WEED AS A POISONOUS PLANT. 45 
to recognize the plant and to avoid any extended grazing upon it. 
It must be remembered that H. Jioopesii does not ordinarily produce 
acute cases, but is a cumulative poison with permanent effects. 
If the herder waits until his flock begins to show symptoms of sick- 
ness before removing them from grazing on the plant, he has waited 
too long. His flock is more or less permanently injured, and recovery 
after removal to another range will be only partial. It is essential 
that he should anticipate the trouble. It is not true, of course, that 
sheep can not be grazed at all where H. Jioopesii is present, but if the 
range is so overgrazed that other forage is scarce and the H. hoopesii 
is abundant, the sheep will eat this plant. When the herder perceives 
that this condition exists, the animals should be moved before cases of 
sickness occur. It is recognized that on some ranges change of loca- 
tion may be difficult, but whether difficult or not it must be done if 
the flocks are to be preserved from loss. The continued grazing of 
flocks on H. Jioopesii is a dangerous custom, and may reasonably be 
expected to have disastrous results. It should be remembered, too, 
that these results do not consist simply in immediate losses, but that 
such flocks are permanently injured and weakened, and lessened in 
value for succeeding years. 
Especial care should be used in trailing sheep from one range to 
another. Where definite trails are laid out and many sheep pass over 
them, overgrazing results, and H. Jioopesii may be practically the 
only remaining plant. Such trails should be avoided whenever pos- 
sible, and when they must be used, care should be taken that the 
animals are well fed before entering them. If they pass through 
them when hungry ; they naturally eat what they can get, and hungry 
animals on a trail eat with especial eagerness. 
SUMMARY. 
1. The western sneezeweed, Helenium (Dugaldia) Jioopesii, has be- 
come very abundant on some of the more elevated and overgrazed 
stock ranges of the West, especially in Utah. 
2. The plant has been proved to be the cause of the disease of sheep 
known as the " spewing sickness" and has also been shown to be 
poisonous to cattle. 
3. The symptoms produced by the plant, the pathology, and the 
toxic dosage have been worked out in detail, and it has been shown 
that a permanent, injurious effect may be produced upon the animals 
eating any considerable quantity of it. 
4. The study of the habits of the plant and experimental work on 
methods of control have shown that little can be accomplished by 
attempts at extermination, and that restoration of the range by 
growth of other plants is an exceedingly slow process. 
