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Show TRIBUNE WRITER VISITS DESERT RANGE STATION; SURVEYS RESEEDING PROGRAM By ERNEST LINFORD Editorial Writer, Salt Lake Tribune (Ernest Linford, editorial writer for the Salt Lake Tribune, Trib-une, recently accompanied a group of Southern Utah men on a trip thru this section of the state. Mr. Linford stopped for a brief chat on his way to the Desert Range Experiment Station, Sta-tion, ard promised us a "dupe" on his story of the trip. The following story of the Desert Range appeared as an editorial in last Sunday's Tribune. Ed.) "Feed is feed, whether it is in the stack, in a sack or on the range." Thus remarked Douglas Clark, Iron county commissioner and leading Utah sheep man, while on a tour of inspection of the Desert Range Experiment station west of Milford near the Utah-Nevada Utah-Nevada border last week. He added his influential voice to the growing list of livestock growers who are convinced that the future health of the vital basic industry depends upon intelligent range management. Like others, Mr. Clark has learned through experience that risks are lessened and financial returns increased in-creased when grazing does not retard the sustained yield of the . i j lC - J '? range. ' The desert fools many un j trained visitors. To the aver-1 age tourist, and doubtless many residents on the periphery, the landscape is bleak. The sparse plants which dot the tawny emptiness are spiny shrubs which appear practically useless. use-less. Yet they furnish winter , feed for livestock, and the gen-1 eral prosperity , of Utah and other intermountain states is closely allied with that of stock I raising. One and one-half million sheep depend upon the West i Desert of Utah for "winter forage for-age and five million graze on the vast expanse extending deep t into Nevada. The higher, green- j er mountain ranges which are also vital as watersheds and j more important for recreational use, .supply the animals" in the! summer and the foothills are used in the spring and fall. The desert range is used five to seven months, even though covered cov-ered with snow. When the Desert Range Experiment Ex-periment station was set up by the U. S. Forest Service in 1934 the range generally was in a sorry condition. Over-grazing had reduced its production by half or more and better forage had been killed out and replaced by less nutritious, less palatable plants. Nature's law of attri i tion applies nowhere quite as j drastically as on the desert j where competition for water and soil is relentless. As more useful, better forage gives way to abuse, lower-quality plants move in and if the pressure continues, they die put, to be replaced re-placed by still lower "scalawags" "scala-wags" of the plant world, such as Russian thistle, rabbitbrush snakegrass and cheat grass Even these can be killed out. leaving the land without any cover, to be eroded and damaged dam-aged beyond rehabilitation. The Desert Range Experiment station comprises 55,000 acres of arid land typical of approximately approxi-mately 60 million acres of winter win-ter range land in the intermountain intermoun-tain region supplying forage foi millions of sheep and tens of thousands of cattle about half the year. Rainfall in thi court try is less than seven inches annually. an-nually. The aim of the scient ists at the station is to determine deter-mine the best possible management manage-ment program. Climate and the pijgram and arrangement ; for the utmost, benefit to the I sheep producer. Studies show conclusively that owners profit greater from a smaller capital investment (fewer sheep) when grazing is properly controlled They also reveal that moderate grazing usually stimulates growth and health of range : forage. Cooperating stockmen J are so impressed with the need for good feed that they are reluctant re-luctant to have their animals placed in the experimental enclosures en-closures which are deliberately over-grazed. Millions of acres of range-land range-land in Utah and millions in other public land states today produce only a fraction of the j livestock feed they are capable of growing. The Desert Range Experiment station and similar institutions prove what can be done to increase wool yields lamb crops and general health of herds, and reduce losses and supplemental feed costs. Millions Mil-lions of acres need reseeding, but many areas are slowly coming com-ing back as range management improves. As the lesson of Desert Range becomes more widely known, and put into practice, the general prosperity and welfare of the intermountain intermoun-tain region will improve. precipitation records herbage production and density are carefully care-fully studied. Various enclosures enclo-sures are used to determine productive pro-ductive capacity under various degrees and kinds of usage. In the ultimate, the aim is to find |