TENURE AND USE OF ARID GRAZING LANDS. 29 
rancher does not do it, somebody else will; so each must do what he 
knows to be unwise or suffer a greater loss. This practice prevents 
the production of seed, hastens the extinction of the best plants, 
and reduces the total quantity of feed produced on the range that 
season. Experimental measurements of the amount of dry matter 
produced by certain cultivated forage plants that were cropped 
back every week showed that they produced less than one-third as 
much as similar plants that grew to maturity before being harvested. 15 
While this estimate of 30 per cent does not of necessity apply to 
range forage plants, there is little doubt that the percentage is 
approximately the same in their case. A fence, therefore, is just as 
necessary to keep stock off certain areas at times as it is to keep 
them from leaving an area. 
Improper seasonal use of feed. — Frequently on part of a given range 
there is feed which is good only in the summer and which must be 
used at that time in order to make the most of it. On another 
part of the range is feed which may be used both winter and summer, 
but the stock prefer it at any time to the summer feed. If the 
stock are sheep, the herder can hold them on the summer feed in 
the summer time; but if they are cattle they will eat the winter 
feed in the summer time, allowing the other to be wasted. It is 
impossible to control cattle on such a range unless the summer feed 
can be fenced and the cattle held upon it until they get hungry. 
Once having commenced to eat it they usually do well upon it. 
This condition may be reversed as to season. Feed that is avail- 
able only at a particular time of the year can not be utilized at all 
unless taken at that time. Stock always eat first what they like 
best, even though the later consequence of such a practice is starva- 
tion. 
On certain areas there is a crop of feed available only for a short 
season. A striking example of this is the abundant and excellent 
feed on the upper slopes of the high mountains in the middle of the 
summer. But stock can not stay in these localities during the 
winter because of the temperature and the lack of feed. Therefore, 
in order that such feed may be utilized, it is necessary that it be 
eaten by stock that can come to the region during the summer and 
go elsewhere during the winter. In other words, it is summer range 
and must be associated with some winter range in order that it may 
be used at all. 
If winter range of proper grazing capacity is within driving distance 
for sheep, as it is'in certain places in Wyoming and Utah, the condi- 
tions necessary for the utilization of the feed are supplied for those 
who can get control of both kinds of range, provided there is a 
passageway between with sufficient feed for the stock in transit. If 
is See Farmers' Bulletin 228, 1915. 
