Guts and Grasses

Abstract

M y interest in ranges and grasses began belatedly after I had owned ranch and farmland in Central Texas for over a decade. Pretty hills, bottomland along the Middle Bosque River, and some productive farmland as well as worn-out fallow fields compose the property. The first decade or so of my ownership was remarkable only in my poor management. I blamed some of my poor performance on a busy medical practice, but complacency is to blame. I had a rural youth, and I had some working knowledge of livestock but not really the land itself. Like many small-town boys of my generation, the land was where one pursued testosterone-enhanced activities, such as hunting, fishing, and working cattle and goats. I did not appreciate the brittleness of my patch of hills and prairie, nor did I appreciate the nature of the responsibility I had assumed when I acquired the property. I guess I resembled the doctor who knows diseases and goes to work every day but does not have a clue about the actual lives of his or her patients. I am fortunate that there was little mesquite on the land, but it was infested with juniper, and I watched these trees multiply like hamsters. I tried bulldozing, but I only ended up with more rock piles and a new growth of juniper and sumac. The grass was usually ribbon high. A favorite author of mine, John Graves, lives in the same series of limestone hills and says our land is worn out because of much cotton and too many cows.' Nevertheless, at some point I realized I could do better, and I started to commute to classes of the School of Ranch Management at Texas Christian University. My first class on soil was superb, but the second class on grasses was an epiphany. I began to try to visualize what the landscape really looked like 150 years ago.