RANGE WATERING PLACES IN THE SOUTHWEST 5 
NECESSITY OF SUFFICIENT WATERING PLACES TO 
PREVENT OVERGRAZING AROUND WATER 
The number of watering places on the range should be suffi- 
cient to prevent excessive bunching of livestock around water. If 
these can not be provided at a reasonable expense there will be little 
chance to use the range to its full carrying capacity. Excessive loss 
and deterioration of both the herd and the range are likely to follow 
‘any attempt to get full use without providing enough watering 
| places. 
Assuming that a range has ample feed for the number of animals 
grazing it, watering f facilities must be judged very unsatisfactory if 
‘the veoetation is badly trampled and if practically denuded areas 
extend one-fourth to one-half mile from watering places. Over- 
grazing can not be avoided where too many livestock water at one 
place, ‘but it decreases to a marked degree under similar forage 
and other conditions when watering places are closer together. “A 
circle with a radius of 2 miles has an area four times as large 
-as one with a radius of 1 mile. Considering watering places as the 
centers of such areas and the conditions similar, the number of cattle 
grazing the area of 2-mile radius may therefore be four times the 
“number on the area of 1-mile radius, but the congestion around the 
first watering place would likewise be four times er reater than around 
the second. This fact explains, in part at least, “the havoc wrought 
around some of the large watering places spaced 6 or more miles 
apart. 
The cumulative effect on the range of overgrazing and drought 
is reflected in killed sod, reduced vitality of surviving plants, in- 
creased erosion, and, on certain forest ranges, In serious injury to 
timber repr oduction. The productive power of overgrazed ranges is 
thus lessened; in extreme cases it may be almost destr oyed, locally : 
and future for age crops also will be affected because damaged ranges 
recover very slowly. 
NUMBER AND SPACING OF WATERING PLACES ON THE 
RANGE 
In devising a livestock watering plan for most southwestern 
ranges, the nearest approach to a balance between cost and an ade- 
quate water supply usually involves a primary framework of well- 
spaced watering places, dependable for the period needed, supple- 
mented by a series of cheaper temporary ones. The climate, kind 
of range, available forage, class and number of animals to be 
watered, topography, ease and cost of development, and cost of 
operation are factors to be considered. 
A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF WELL-SPACED PERMANENT WATERS 
OF FIRST IMPORTANCE 
With drought so much a factor in southwestern livestock produc- 
tion, it is imperative that the dependability of any watering place 
essential to the life of the herd be judged only during dry seasons. 
Though surface-water supplies sometimes reach their lowest levels 
in late fall, they usually do so in the spring or early summer just 
