Show THE FOREST government making an effort to discover antidote and thus save cattlemen heavy losses the losses to the cattlemen in the western states from larkspur pois aning every year have been so sen ous that the government Is making a vigorous effort to find an antidote lor the poison as well as to aradi ate the plant itself in the gunelson Gunn lson national forest colorado the losses to the stockmen last season from larkspur were con i estimated to equal almost per cent of the total number of cattle grazed upon that forest its effects are almost immediate death follows the eating of the plant within a few hours for this reason remedies are of little avail because the animals are generally dead be fore they are discovered experts from the budeau of plant industry in with the for est service have made careful and painstaking investigations in the held with a view of lessening the losses as far as possible while sev cral different plans have been tried in hopes of completely destroying the lant larkspur grows very luxuriantly in the early spring on the gundson forest in june 1906 the forest of beers counted more than 1 plants in blossom upon a single square rod the plant seems to be more poison ous in hot damp weather than in dry seasons and it has been observed that when the ground Is hard and alry that in eating it the sterna break off leaving the roots in the ground it is not so deadly in its ef facts since certain areas are well knoer to be badly infested with larkspur the stockmen have been in the habit of herding their cattle from such places As far as possible these reas will be fenced by the forest service on other adeas where it 1 not so plentiful the plants will be dug out by the forest rangers and also mowed off to prevent again it has also been found that the plant will not hold its own against certain kinds of grasses such as tim othy A few acres sowed in timothy are being carefully watched and it 1 believed that it Is crowding the lark out it seems probable that sowing timothy on the mountain meadows the larkspur could be grad nally smothered and replaced by s valuable forage plant if this plan is supported by good evidence this season timothy will be extensively sowed later on mean while upon this as well as several other national forests where the losses from this plant are very seri u the building of fences to keep the cattle off the most dangerous areas Is being pushed by the forest bervice and will be continued as fast as funds are available for the pur pose mr J thomas of crawford Craw tord col orado made an experiment in feed ing the larkspur some years ago to determine if possible just what part f the plant contained the poisonous properties A yearling steer was fed j large quantity of the leaves with no injurious results A few day later the same animal was fed a of the roots and within ten hours it was dead thus justifying the suspicion that the poisonous matter was contained in the root |