(d) The Inland Empire or Columbia Basin.—This includes parts of eastern Washington, northeastern Oregon and northern Idaho. In the Palouse country of eastern Washington, wheat and wild oats are largely grown for hay. Those sections of the Em pire having a rainfall of less than ten inches are devoted largely to grazing and the production of alfalfa by irrigation. Large areas have been over stocked and the native meadows are being replaced by cultivated crops. Some of the grasses of special importance growing indigenously in the meadows and bottom lands are western and false wheat-grass, white-top, water foxtail, blue-joint (Calamagrostis), oat-grass, hair-grass (Deschampsia), saltgrass (Dis tichlis), wild rye, meadow barley-grass, melic-grass, manna-grass and blue-grasses. On the dry hills in the ravines and among the sagebrush, the following are of considerable importance ; bunch wheat-grass (Agropyron), mountain rye-grass (Elymus), sheep's fescue, needle-grasses (Stipa) and false oat-grass (Trisetum.) In addition to the above there are about ten native clovers, nearly all of which are very nutri tious and well liked by stock. The sedges and rushes are also extremely abundant and enter largely into the composition of all the native meadows and pastures. As in other regions devoted
to grazing, the vetches, milk-vetches, lupines, sun flowers, saltbushes and wild peas play an important part in the production of forage.
(e) Alaska.—Only a small part of this new terri tory has been investigated from a forage stand point. The chief literature describing the meadows and pastures is to be found in the annual report of the office of Experiment Stations for the year 1904, Bulletin No. 82 of the Bureau of Plant Industry, and the publications of. the Alaska Experiment Station. The following extract from Bulletin No. 82 will give some idea as to the present conditions "Live-stock husbandry in Alaska will have to de pend primarily on the native forage plants, sup plemented in time, perhaps, by such additional ones r.s experiments shall indicate may compete with the native plants, or which on cultivated land will yield heavily enough to be profitable." Blue-top, beach rye, Kentucky blue-grass, silver top, Siberian fescue, various sedges, Alaska lupine and fireweed are mentioned as being the best native forage plants.