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Show Sanpete Lambs Get Big On Crested Wheat Grass Are we going to develop a one hundred pound range lamb in five months? From the performance of a large number of sheepmen m Sanpete County over a period of$ the last six years, the answer ; would seem to be: "Yes. it is possible." pos-sible." j The question naturally arises: j How ? And the answer to that is 1 more Crested Wheat Grass more 1 and better range management. I During the summer of 1935, ! when the effects of the really bad 1 years of the early 30's were beginning be-ginning to bring to the farmer and livestock grower of Sanpete county coun-ty the full realization of just how bad a drought can effect a farming country, Archie M. Melor of the Sanpete County AAA made a farm and range survey in order to learn first hand just how badly the livestock live-stock men had been hurt. He interviewed numerous ranchers, ranch-ers, asking them what had happened hap-pened to so many of the livestock units, both large and small, ine answer he received in nine out of ten cases was "starved out." This is the way one small sheepman sheep-man put it: 'In 1933 I mortgaged one-half of my sheep in order to get money to buy enough feed to carry through lambing. Well, owing to the extreme drought I found out that I had to do the same thing with the rest of my sheep in 1934. I pulled the herd through, but the drought had left the range so bad that it was impossible to make enough money to pay off the debts I owed on them. Result the sheep had to go to pay the bill.". Those were the days when a five - months - old range lamb weighed around 60 pounds. In the early 40's, Archie M. Mellor was elected to the Sanpete County AAA Committee, and being a sheepman himself, he decided to find out if anything could be done with the AAA range program to improve this bad range condition. With the approval of the State AAA Committee, Mr. Mellor started start-ed his rehabilitation program. "Plant Grass make stock water-1 ing ponds all over the range and then plant more grass," was his cry. A grass planting program in a high dry county like Sanpete is to say the least rather discouraging. The grass didn't seem to grow. The spring range was fast becoming a waste land. The cold dry Aprils seemed to freeze the tender Crested Crest-ed Wheat grass shoots as fast as they came up out of the ground. It took three years of waiting before things began to happen. Then the grass started to grow, and how it did grow, and how those lambs grew! To make a long story short, the range survey made in the fall of 1947 showed that there was approximately ap-proximately 20.000 acres of grass furnishing feed for the spring lamb crop of Sanpete County, and the average weight of the five-months lamb was not 60 pounds but 83 pounds. 'And that," Mr. Mellor says, "is what Crested Wheat Grass will do." |