Arizona republican. [volume] (Phoenix, Ariz.) 1890-1930, 1911-03-24


grama grass (boutelous rothrockiD, thu
perennial grasses have scarcely in
creased any. Even the annual plant.
that have grown up and matured theil
seed undisturbed, year after year, grow
no more abundantly inside the fence
with two or three exceptions. than the
same species do on the outside of the
| fence. OF course there is more dead
vegetation on the protected area than
on the unprotected open range.
But at the close of growing sea-
son there appears about as much
| fresh growth in the one case as i'm
the other. The tree-like cacti in
side the enclosure have much more
\ fruit on them than similar plants on
/ the outside of the fence. - This was
to be expected since these plants,
when not browsed, carry their fruit
for several wears.
Clearly, the carrying capacity of
this range has not increased with
ten years rest, and under present
conditions it would not pay to fence
ranges of this type. And | believe
this is equally true for all ranges of
this general class. l should have
told you that the annual rainfall for
this range is about IL inches. di-
vided nearly equally between the
winter and summer seasons. This
is fairly good rainfall for the lower
mesas in Arizona. But six inches
of summer rainfall is not enough
to support a growth of perennial or
bunch grasses. and hence these
plants cannot grow continuously over
such ranges as this The most val
liable forage plants then here are the
scattered shrubs and trees. cacti in
Guiding prickly pears and chollas, and
the more or less uncertain summer
and winter annual growth. The way
to handle this kind of range is to
Craze it as closely as possible with
in reason, after the annual plants
have matured their seeds, not before
which is the experience of practical
stockmen. Heavy grazing after the
seeds have ripened does not destroy
a large percentage of them, but ac
tually tramples them into the ground.
thus keeping them from blowing
away. On the other hand. heavy
grazing is not injurious to the cact.
or other browse plants.
But there is one promising feature
about this class of grazing land. /
have experimental with 800 species
of forage plants, native and intro
duced, trying to get some of them to
grow here without irrigation other
than the rainfall, and | have found
one of this number that succeeds on
these mesas, and when once well
established on the better class of this
1an tf-bi ph
ceives some surface run off from the
higher parts, no matter how dry the
reason this grass does not die out.
This is a tall native grass which
ranchers call silver top blue stem;
over here in Texas you call a very
similar grass feather DIue stem.
This grass has been under observa-
ton for nine years and it has never
died out any from droughty condi-
tions though il does not grow in the
winter season, and only little dur
ing extremely droughty summers.
AS soon as the summer rains be
gin it starts growth and in the
course of a month or so it stands a
foot high. Two months after the
summer rains had set in the past
summer it stood three feet high, and
beautiful sight it was on the
mesas The past season il yielded
at the rate of one to one and one
fourth tons of hay per acre, and the
year before it did even better. Re-
member this is on mesa land which
now has very little value. and this
crop of hay is grown without Guilt
walton after the plant is once estab-
lished, and without irrigation, and
one is reasonably certain of a crop
each year, though there have been
failures. / confess that as compar
ed with alfalfa hay this grass ranks
low i'm nutritive value. but it has
some food value. and it eaten and
relished by range caNie. Now j
feel certain that the better class of
our lower mesa country can be sown
to this grass and fenced. after which
it will yield annually without Guilt
walton or irrigation one ton of hay
per acre, and that is a great deal
better than nothing. Under our
present conditions this land has very
little value, and l have just shown
you that fencing it from stock does
not appreciably help it.
But let us look at another class
of grazing land that is very abundant
in Arizona. / refer to the perennial
or bunch grass ranges, or at least to
the ranges where perennial grasses
grew before they were grazed and
trampled out Some OF you know
these grasses as root grasses. 1
spoke a moment ago about the large
range reserve which embraces 80
square miles of fenced diversified
country. The Arizona Agricultural
Experiment Station and the United
States Department of Agriculture CO.
operate in the work in this large
range enclosure as they also do or
The upper half of this large range
enclosure is principally perennial or
bunch grass land. There are occa-
sional shrubs and cacti but the
grasses are the predominant plants.
This range has been fenced for seven
years The rainfall on the upper or
perennial grass portion is about IL
inches annually, of which 2 inches
fall in the summer and inches in
the winter and spring season. This
part of the range lies above 5000 feet
Previous to the time that this area
was fenced. it had been overgrazed
by herds of cattle, sheep and horses
for at least 20 years. and what one
lot of stock missed another was sure
to get The horses fed on the grass,
the sheep ate the shrubs and weeds. |
while the cattle took everything else |
that was left. In the words of one |