Abstract
This essay focuses on grasslands management techniques on the cattle ranches in the foothills of southern Alberta during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Contrary to opinions recently expressed by some scholars, it provides substantial evidence that frontier cattlemen abused and grossly overstocked their ranges. It also illustrates the sophisticated rotational management programs that some of the most efficient present-day cattle producers in the area have instigated. In the final analysis, however, it underscores the disturbing fact that these men and women represent a small minority of the foothills ranchers and that the decline of rough fescue, wheat grass, and other grass species indigenous to the area for centuries, has not significantly been reversed. In that respect, the legacy of the frontier lives on.
