Since the majority of legumes are herbaceous plants, propagation is largely by seed. In general, better germination is obtained if the seed is scarified, and for some species inoculation is necessary. For erosion-control work, seed is usually sown broadcast on a prepared seedbed which has been plowed, disked, or raked and settled or rolled. Sowing after a rain and moderate fertilization of the site are advantageous. If the seed is of a perennial species, which may not produce adequate soil protection the first year, a nurse crop of some annual legume, such as lespedeza, or some grass such as Sudan grass or brown-top millet, will provide ground cover. On severely eroded sites, herbaceous cover is more rapidly established if a mulch of straw, pine boughs, or other suitable material is applied. A light application of barnyard manure forms a good mulch-fertilizer combination. Some success has been obtained in the Southeast by mulching eroded areas with Lespedeza sericea hay, cut at a time when enough ripe seeds remain attached to the plants to produce a stand. Mulching with pine boughs in the autumn preceding spring seeding, known as premulching, has likewise been successful, for the branches not only retard erosion during the winter but retain enough moisture and catch enough soil to eliminate the need for seedbed preparation.

Once a stand of vegetation is obtained, the problem becomes one of maintenance. Even when erosion control is accomplished it may be desirable to maintain a given area in a certain vegetative composition for wildlife habitat or some other purpose. For example, eroding field borders planted to nonwoody species should remain in this type of vegetation in order to prevent shading of crops by trees encroaching from the adjacent woodland. It may actually be desirable to cut out periodically the shrubs and young trees that invade the border strip and maintain it free of woody vegetation. The problem of arresting secondary plant succession, and thus maintaining a stage of vegetation useful to his purpose, is one of the real tasks confronting the wildlife manager. This demands acute observation, trial, and a growing knowledge of fundamental ecological principles that can be applied to the land. In many places ordinary, disking of the ground results in invasion by valuable native legumes, which can be maintained by further periodic disking every few years. In the poor, acid soils of the New Jersey pine barrens, the plants that volunteer in old fields and roadsides and can be maintained by disking or light burning are a few grasses of the genera Panicum and Paspalum, ragweed, and the following legumes: Chamaecrista fasciculata, Baptisia tinctoria, Tephrosia virginiana, Lespedeza spp., Galactia regularis, and Strophostyles helvola. If the disturbance is not severe and strips are disked on the contour, there is no erosion hazard and less useful plants are often discouraged.

Another tool that may be useful to the wildlife manager in maintaining desirable types of vegetation is fire. Uncontrolled burning usually destroys vegetation, decreases soil fertility, and increases erosion. However, Stoddard has demonstrated that in certain types of vegetation, such as the longleaf pine forest of the. Gulf Coastal Plain, carefully controlled periodic burning is an advisable quail-management practice. It aids in the reestablishment, of the valuable forest tree, longleaf pine, and produces a forest understory of leguminous plants that provides acceptable food for bobwhite. This burning, however, is done at a selected time, with regulated frequency, and with controlled intensity. Under such conditions it becomes a tool useful in arresting plant succession at a stage in which the composition of the vegetation is of most use for the end in view.

Much remains to be learned about such wildlife-management practices, however, and the field biologist has an opportunity to contribute enormously to our knowledge of both the establishment and maintenance of herbaceous vegetation useful in soil and wildlife conservation.

Jason Ladock

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