pleased with my first trip to the ranch.

CHAPTER III

THE OPEN RANGE

Arizona is in the arid belt and well adapted to the range cattle
industry. Its mild climate and limited water supply make it the ideal
range country. Indeed, to the single factor of its limited water
supply, perhaps, more than anything else is its value due as an open
range. If water was abundant there could be no open range as then the
land would all be farmed and fenced.

Arizona is sometimes spoken of as belonging to the plains, but it is
not a prairie country. Mountains are everywhere, but are separated in
many places by wide valleys. The mountains not only make fine scenery,
but are natural boundaries for the ranches and give shade and shelter
to the cattle.

There are no severe storms nor blizzard swept plains where cattle drift
and perish from cold. The weather is never extremely cold, the mercury
seldom falling to more than a few degrees below freezing, except upon
the high plateaus and mountains of northern Arizona. If it freezes
during the night the frost usually disappears the next day; and, if
snow flies, it lies only on the mountains, but melts as fast as it
falls in the valleys. There are but few cloudy or stormy days in the
year and bright, warm sunshine generally prevails. There has never
been any loss of cattle from cold, but many have died from drought as a
result of overstocking the range.

The pastures consist of valley, mesa and mountain lands which, in a
normal season, are covered by a variety of nutritious grasses. Of all
the native forage plants the gramma grass is the most abundant and
best. It grows only in the summer rainy season when, if the rains are
copious, the gray desert is converted into a vast green meadow.

The annual rainfall is comparatively light and insufficient to grow and
mature with certainty any of the cereal crops. When the summer rains
begin to fall the rancher is "jubilant" and the "old cow smiles." Rain
means even more to the ranchman than it does to the farmer. In an
agricultural country it is expected that rain or snow will fall during
every month of the year, but on the range rain is expected only in
certain months and, if it fails to fall then, it means failure, in a
measure, for the entire year.

Rain is very uncertain in Arizona. July and August are the rain months
during which time the gramma grass grows. Unless the rain falls daily
after it begins it does but little