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Show IoisojTrange puntstudied (Salt Lake Tribune) Dr. C. D. Marsh, of the United States bureau of animal industry, who has carried on intensive investi-.gations investi-.gations and experiments in feeding in connection with a survey of pois-j pois-j onous plants on the western ranges, has an article entitled "Plants Poisonous Pois-onous to - Sheep" in the current issue of the National Wool Grower magazine. maga-zine. The article deals especially with what is known as the "whorled milkweed." milk-weed." Losses from this weed have been reported from Utah, Colorado, Arizona Ari-zona and New Mexico. The effects of this plant upon sheep were not I definitely known until Dr. Marsh com-! com-! pleted his experiment. One may, ; however, ride over the range on the Parowan-Cedar mountains or almost anywhere on the- Dixie-Sevier national na-tional forest and see bodies of animals ani-mals which have died from poisoning. poison-ing. In the article Dr. Marsh states that some few years ago some person living at New Harmony collected some of the milkweed growing on the mountain range, thought it to be poisonous, and promised to send it to the Salina experiment station for j feeding tests. "But," says Dr. Marsh, "the material never arrived, and a year or two later we heard that the j plant had been collected and placed ( in . the man's yard for drying. While Jthe plant was lying there his cow got, into the yard and ate the plant, with the consequent loss of both weed and cow. Later, however, the same type of plant was discovered in Colorado, and from gathering a large amount of this milkweed and feeding it in tests, Dr. Marsh has drawn the following conclusions: "It was found the plant ranks among those that are very poisonous poison-ous to livestock, comparatively small quantities producing sickness or death. The minimum dose affecting the animals might produce death; that is, if the animals were poisoned pois-oned at all, fatal results might be expected. The quantity of green plant necessary to poison or kill was, in the case of cattle, .55 per cent of the animal's weight; in horses, .16 per cent, and in sheep, .138 per cent; or, put a little differently, dif-ferently, to poison or kill a steer of 1000 pounds weight, requires about 55 pounds of green plant, while a horse of 1000 pounds weight wuold require about V.i pounds, and an average sheep 2Vi ounces. The irnnwn losses have been largely of sheep, although many cattle have been poisoned." As for remedies, there are practically prac-tically none for treating poisoned animals. Dr. Marsh has found that one must depend largely on keeping stock away from the plant. "Stock do not eat whorled milkweed milk-weed because they like it, but from a lack of good forage," he found. The eradication of the plant is difficult, for It is impossible to do any kind of cultivating on the range where the plant grows, and disking seems to be the only means of eradication given. However, when the plant is young it contains a great amount of water; wa-ter; it has not made any great growth and hence the supply is limited, and when the supply is low there is not much danger of loss. Continual feeding off when the plant is young and immature, Dr. Marsh finds, is the best means of eradication on the range. There is some risk, but this is comparatively small if sheepherders are careful. |