Need for Research on Grasslands

burden themselves with debt and built steam or Diesel plants. Kerosene lamps lighted the rural homes, and coal- and oil-burning generators, furnished electricity to the urban centers, while most of the rivers, like the Loup in Nebraska, "flowed unvexed to the sea." Now, with liberal government assistance , the Loup River Public Power District at Columbus, and its sister districts at North Platte and Hastings, will help transform the cultural landscape into a brighter and more pleasant picture than it has been in the past. Need for Research on Grasslands HBEEEBT O. HANSON North Dakota Agricultural College, !Fargo, North Dakota Grasslands contain vast stores of unexplored knowledge, which will enrich the fields of plant and animal ecology, evolution, climatology, geography , and geology: such as, the evolution of grassland plants and animals , the influences of environments ranging from the tropical lowlands to deserts and alpine summits upon distribution and origin of species, the results of interrelations between plants and animals under widely varying environments, the linkage of present geographic distributions and characteristics of grassland species to forest , aquatic, and desert species and to earlier geological species and conditions . Little effort has been made to use grasslands in their original condition. Aided by the "Westward Ho" movement , by the lack of a constructive land policy, by the expansion in power farm machinery, and the demand during the World War for more wheat there has been a scramble, at times a frenzy, to "break" the sod. This drive to settle the West and plow up the grassland did not stop until millions of acres were turned "wrong side up" and the dust clouds, blown from these lands, reached the Atlantic seaboard. Now, after a large part of our grasslands have been wasted, interest and appreciation are being shown in this natural resource. The immediate and insistent demand is to get the land back into grass. But to restore the grassland is no easy matter. Nature required thousands of years for this process. Grassland, as it existed before breaking and consequent erosion, was the result of countless interactions over a long period of time of plants, animals, and climatic and soil conditions. The best that can be done is to try to adjust human operations and relationships to nature's processes and requirements , Reseeding will aid in hastening the process of invasion. But much more is necessary. In man's struggle with the environments there are two altematives : He must either change unfavorable factors so they will be inore favorable to his well-being, or he must adjust himself to these factors . This law operates in man's relations with grasslands, which in many places have now gotten out of control^ clue to mismanagement. Man made a serious mistake when he attempted to make all grassland more favorable to his well-being by plowing, by draining , by burning, by overgrazing, etc. He has learned that he must have much land restored to grassland in order to avoid greater evils. He may have learned that he must adjust himself to the needs and ways of grassland , if he is to survive in grassland country. The following phases merit much additional research : 1.Study of life history and habits of individual grassland plants and animals. 2.Study of the processes of biotic communities, such as invasion, competition, association, and succession . 3.Study of the relation of (27) plants and animals to soil building, soil improvement, and soil binding. 4.Basis soil studies. 5.Study of the relation of vegetation and animal life to climatic conditions. 6.Study o.f the relation of animals to climatic conditions. 7.Study of inter-relation between vegetation and grazing by livestock and by wild animals. 8.Study of the inter-relations of vegetation and biotic factors, The Occupance and Abandonment of Ty*e*, A Cascade Mountain Community LEONARD C. EKMAN Skykomish, Washington During the eighties and nineties several transcontinental railroads were seeking routes across the Cascades to tap Puget Sound ports. After numerous surveys the Great Northern Railroad finally selected Steven's Pass and the Skykomish Valley in western Washington as its most advantageous route through the Cascades. The upper approaches to the west side of the pass were so...