RANGE PRESERVATION AND EROSION CONTROL. 29 
ferred grazing first on the one area and then on another, until the 
entire range has been rejuvenated. After the vegetative cover has 
been established, however, the deferred grazing is alternated or ro- 
tated from one portion of the range to another in order to permit 
of , the formation and distribution of an occasional seed crop by 
means >f which the old plants may be replaced. In this way the 
range is brought back u :1 maintained in its maximum state of pro- 
ductivity without the loss of a season's forage crop during the period 
required for re vegetation. 
ARTIFICIAL KESEEDING. 
The lack of fertility and moisture in eroded soils, as pointed out, 
makes it necessary first to build up the depleted lands before even the 
most drought-resistant, well-adapted native perennial species can be 
reseeded. Cultivated forage plants, even of the most drought- 
resistant kinds, are more exacting in their requirements of plant 
foods and soil moisture than native species; consequently artificial 
reseeding can be recommended as a paying proposition only where 
the soil of mountain range lands is above average in fertility and 
where the moisture conditions are favorable to growth throughout 
the summer season. Incipient meadow erosion may in some in- 
stances be held back by seeding to cultivated plants of a soil-binding 
type, like Kentucky bluegrass, but under such conditions the scat- 
tering of a little seed of aggressive, turf-forming native species on 
the exposed soil is still better. (See Pis. V and VI.) 
CONTROL AND DISTRIBUTION OF LIVE STOCK. 
One of the most common causes of range depletion, even where the 
carrying capacity of the lands as a whole has been carefully esti- 
mated, the season of grazing adjusted, and the deferred and rotation 
system of grazing adopted, is the excessive grazing of one area and 
the nongrazing or very light cropping of another as the result of 
poor distribution of stock, improper salting, and faulty handling of 
the stock, especially sheep. 
There is a tendency among cattle and horses to drift to and con- 
gregate on the more elevated plateaus, though the feed may be at 
its best at lower elevations. While they may not reach the moun- 
tain ranges for some time after growth has started, far more ani- 
mals may remain on certain lands than can be grazed without injury 
to the vegetation. In the meantime the forage at lower elevations 
dries up and becomes less palatable, the temperature becomes too 
high for the stock to make maximum gains, and as a consequence 
much of the forage is wasted. 
