RANGE PRESERVATION AND EROSION CONTROL. 31 
REMEDIAL MEASURES WHERE THOROUGH REVEGETATION BY ORDINARY MEANS 
IS IMPOSSIBLE. 
TOTAL EXCLUSION OF STOCK. 
On the more important fan-shaped basins at high eleval ions, 
where the original vegetative cover, including the seed plants, has 
for the most part disappeared- and where the fertility of the soil has 
been seriously depleted as a result of erosion, the best plan is to 
discontinue grazing entirely. The small amount of forage pro- 
duced, consisting, as it usually does, of annual weeds and many 
poisonous species, by no means compensates for the further skim- 
ming off of the already deficient organic matter and tearing down 
into the gullies of the loose soil. In most instances stock will not 
have to be excluded longer than during the period required to re- 
establish the fertility of the soil and the incoming of the deep-rooted, 
permanent type of perennial vegetation, provided, of course, that 
light grazing and proper handling of the stock are at all times 
resorted to. On the other hand, where the soil fails to regain its 
former productivity within a reasonable length of time, as indicated 
by the character and density of the vegetative cover following the 
exclusion of stock, grazing should be permanently discontinued. To 
graze such lands after a few years of rest, even though they pro- 
duced a little feed, would be to undo in a season all that nature has 
accomplished in building up the soil during the seasons that stock 
was excluded. 
TERRACING AND PLANTING. 
There are local areas, mostly of small size, where the proper regu- 
lation of grazing and, indeed, the total exclusion of stock from seri- 
ously eroded lands is delayed until the vegetative cover can not be 
effectively reestablished and the erosion thus eliminated. The estab- 
lishment of a dense cover of vegetation should not be hoped for on 
the bottom and along the sides of deep, vertically cut gullies where 
the water rushes by after each rainstorm of appreciable size. The 
force of the water does not permit many seeds to lodge, and in the 
beginnings the soil is too thin and dry to favor growth. Depressions 
of the more prominent gullies which have been revegetated, how- 
ever, would still serve as drainage channels following heavy rain- 
storms, but the resistance afforded by the vegetation would tend to 
hold the water back; and since the soil would be held firmly by the 
roots, the channels would tend to flatten out rather than become 
more prominent. 
Where it is no longer possible for the vegetation to hold the soil 
intact, some means of artificial control is necessary. The gully 
