- 2 - 
EI even engineers (73 percent) reported that spraying was used to supplement 
mowing, and five that spraying was used to eliminate one or more mowings. 
Ten respondents (66 percent) revealed that changes in mowing policy had been 
made over the last 10 years, but 13 (C 7 percent) did not anticipate any further 
changes in the near futures One of the two respondents that expected changes to 
be made anticipated less mowing; the other expected more mowing in areas where 
herbicides have proven ineffective. 
Of the II engineers responding to a question on changing costs of mowing, 8 
(73 percent) reported increases in mowing costs and 3 (27 percent) reported 
decreases . According to these estimates, per acre mowing costs increased an 
average of 5 percent each year since i860. Ten respondents provided figures on 
mowing costs. Annual per acre mowing costs averaged $11.86 for two-lane highway 
roadsides and $17-78 for four-lane and Interstate roadsides; the average for all 
highways was $15-19 per acre. A study conducted by the Department of Agricultural 
Engineering at the University or Illinois revealed that in 1959 mowing costs for 
highway roadsides were $ 10.21 per acre per year. 
Two significant points can be made from these data: (1) the cost of vegetation 
control a Iong highways is increasing, with no evidence to suggest that this trend 
will change without major changes in maintenance policies; and ( 2 ) through the use 
of selective herbicides and realistic mowing programs, many states among those 
surveyed are attempting to place costs of roadside vegetation management in a 
better perspective relative to the total budget for highway maintenance. 
Changing concepts of maintenance applied to newly constructed and existing 
roadsides can and are resulting in sizable acreages of undisturbed cover on 
highway roadsides throughout much of the country The potential benefit of these 
changes for pheasants and other ground-nesting birds could be substantial. 
3. Factors Influencing Pistribution and Abundance of Pheasants VI. L• Anderson 
Audio censuses of calling cocks revealed that at least 57 cock pheasants were 
present on the Neoga release area during May 1968. This count of breeding cocks 
is 30 percent greater than the number counted during May I 967 (44 cocks) and 293 
percent greater than the all-time low count (16 cocks), made during May 1964. The 
increase noted from I 967 to 1968 represents the 4th consecutive year that the 
population of breeding codes has increased on the area. These findings offer 
continued encouragement that a permanent, low-density population of pheasants is 
becoming established in the vicinity of Neoga. 
4. Res ponses of Bobwhites to Habitat Manipulation J. A. Ellis, K. P. Thomas 
The program of prescribed burning, initiated on a 250-acre portion of the 
Dale Area in March I 966 , has produced a dramatic population response by quail. 
During the prehunt census in 19&7> 129 quail were found in the burned zone, an 
increase of 126 percent over the prehunt estimate of 1 966 (57 quail). The prehunt 
population on the burned zone in 1967 was 38 percent higher than any other prehunt 
population since the fall of I 963 . 
A population loss of 10 percent from the posthunt census (62 quail) to the 
prebreeding census (56 quail) was recorded on the burned zone in I960- The remainder 
