RANGE AND CATTLE MANAGEMENT DURING DROUGHT. 43 
BREEDING HERD SHOULD BE LIMITED TO GRAZING CAPACITY OF THE RANGE 
DURING DROUGHT. 
The tendency has been to increase the breeding herd during good 
years to the limit of range capacity and in many instances beyond 
this hmit. When drought came on, anything for which there was a 
market was sold, and thus years of effort in improving the herd were 
lost, at least in part, while losses from starvation were excessive. 
The increasing cost of producing the individual animal and the 
erowing importance of improving the average grade of stock, to 
meet the demand from the feed lots, both argue against continuation 
of this old practice. The alternative is to limit the breeding stock to 
the number that can be taken care of during periods of drought. 
BREEDING HERD ON THE JORNADA RANGE RESERVE. 
In attacking this problem on the Jornada Range Reserve the 
original plan was to keep two-thirds of the normal grazing capacity 
of the entire range for breeding cows, young heifers to replace culls 
from the breeding herd, bulls, saddle horses, and a few brood mares. 
Table 17 shows the number of these classes of stock carried each 
year through the period 1915 to 1919 including a drought, the per- 
centage of the range used for each class of stock, and the amount 
of forage crop produced each year in percentage of the 1915-16 crop, 
which is considered about maximum for the reserve. 
TABLE 17.—Number by classes of stock making up permanent herd on Jornada 
Range Reserve, each class in percentage of total grazing capacity of the 
reserve in 1915-16, and estimated forage production in terms of 1915-16 
crop. 
Heifers 1 year 
Cows of calvin old and up not aaah 
age. : Bulls. yet plecad in Horses. ae 
breeding herd. Total f 
in per- | 10f48e 
cent | produc 
Ye Per- Per- Per- Per- aby of tion, 
Br: cent- cent- cent- cents, |v? per- 
age of age of age of age of | 8722" | cent- 
ing ca- 
Num- | total | Num-| total | Num- | total | Num- | total age of 
ber. | carry-| ber. | carry-| ber. | carry-] ber. | carry- Dery 1915-16, 
ing ca- ing ca- ing ca- ing ca- ‘| produc- 
pacity, pacity, pacity, pacity, tion.! 
1915-16. 1915-16. 1915-16. 1915-16. 
OTS SNGE ee eee ene 1,950 | 41.75 80 ls 695 | 14.87 120 2.56 | 60.89 100 
LONG Mee Ree Hae 28k 2,022 | 43.27 80 eval 751 | 16.07 140 3.00 | 64.05 81 
I 7S gee e Soermih 1,986 | 42.49 80 lsat 892 | 19.08 180 3.85 | 67.13 54 
ADESSO eae gers epee re ee AS ee Lee ek OU Ve eee ee ea ee 49. 42 64 
1 The 1915-16rangeisconsidered near maximum conditionand thereforeis used asthe basisofecomparison. 
The amount offorage producedin other years was arrived at by careful estimates of the amount produced 
on the reserve as a whole checked by quadrat measurements and number of stock the range was actually 
able to support. 
2During the grazing year ending June 30, 1919, the various herds were disorganized by removal to other 
range for part of the year. However, an average of 2,310 head of stock were grazed during the year. 
The last two columns of Table 17 show, first, that only in 1917-18 
did the breeding herd, including other permanent stock, exceed two- 
