34 BULLETIX 1245, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
time. A large number of specific instances have been noted. At 
one place in Idaho, for instance, where losses have occurred repeat- 
edly, it was found that the sheep were trailed in a narrow space 
through a patch of lupine. The remedy in such cases clearly is to 
see that the sheep, when it is necessary to trail them through a patch 
of lupine, are drifted rather than driven, and that they are well fed 
when they come upon the lupine area. It seems probable that intelli- 
gent handling of bands t of sheep may reduce to almost nothing the 
losses occasioned by death camas and lupine. If, however, hungry 
sheep come in contact with fields of death camas in the spring, or 
with fields of lupine in the late summer and in the fall, at a time 
when the plants are bearing pods, fatal results must be expected. 
In one locality in Oregon an instance of this character occurred in 
the summer of 1914, when something like 4,000 sheep which had been 
driven rather rapidly along a trail where forage was scarce were 
turned into a 10-acre pasture on which there was little but sagebrush 
and lupine, the lupine at that time being in pod. About 400 out of 
the 4.000 sheep died. Similar instances might be cited in a large 
number of places. Sometimes successive bands of sheep are driven 
over a trail, several going without any loss whatever: then one band 
may suffer heavily, while others following are not harmed. The 
explanation of these cases seems to be that the first animals going 
over the trail avail themselves of all the useful forage. The succeed- 
ing animals, finding nothing suitable for food, take the poisonous 
plants, which may be wild cherry or lupine, or, in the case of cattle, 
larkspur. The animals which are poisoned may exhaust the supply. 
even of the poisonous plants, so that succeeding bands are not 
poisoned and get across the trail safely provided they do not fall 
from actual starvation. 
It follows from these facts that it is very undesirable to keep sheep 
for any length of time upon the same bedding ground. This has 
been shown to be bad for the range on general principles, but it is 
also rather risky for the sheep themselves, for if animals go out from 
the same place day after day and return at night they will eat every- 
thing that is available along the route. In such cases, if there are 
poisonous plants to be obtained, the animals are pretty apt at some 
time to get hold of them, with disastrous results. This has been 
very clearly shown in a case of Menziesia (laurel) poisoning, in 
which animals were bedded on a forest range for five nights in the 
same place; the animals were safe for the first two nights, but after 
that there was heavy loss. At the same time a band that was 
wandering about without a herder in the same region was uninjured. 
It can not be too strongly impressed upon persons handling sheep 
upon the range that the sheep should be allowed to graze as far as 
possible under strictly natural conditions. By this is meant that 
they should be allowed to go freely, separated from each other, 
moving -lowly, and not permitted to graze over and over upon the 
same ground. The so-called blanket system of herding, which is 
advocated by the Forest Service, in addition to the fact that it 
aids in the conservation of the range, will also without any doubt 
reduce the losses from poisonous plants to a minimum, if it does not 
enl irely do away with them. 
