Grazing And Floods

Excerpt from Grazing and Floods: A Study of Conditions in the Manti National Forest, Utah As the contest between the sheepmen and the cattlemen, and be tween rival sheepmen became more severe, the carrying capacity of the range rapidly diminished, and more travel on the part of the grazing stock became necessary to secure enough feed. The result was that, between 1888 and 1905, the Wasatch Range, from Thistle to Salina, was a vast dust bed, grazed, trampled, and burned to the utmost. The timber cover was reduced, the brush thinned, the weeds and grass cropped to the roots, and such sod as existed was broken and worn. The basins at the head of the canyons suffered most, relatively, because they contained the best feed for sheep and were less broken in topography and more easily accessible. Their scanty timber cover, however, made them particularly liable to removal of the soil by wind action wherever the surface cover was broken through and dry powdered earth exposed. These high mountain pastures, therefore, received not only the most abuse, but have been proportionately longer in recovering from its effects. In March, 1902, a large area was withdrawn from entry' for the Manti National Forest, and on May 29, 1903, President Roosevelt created the larger part of the present Forest. Subsequently additions were made, mainly at the northern end. Upon beginning administration of the new Forest the action of the Land Office was prompt and vigorous. On August 18, 1903, the Commissioner of the Land Office ordered all sheep removed from the western slope of the mountains. This order was carried into effect at the beginning' of the following grazing season. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.