• Coffin, Claude A.
  Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, Arizona
  

Since the beginning of range management research, over 50 years ago, there has been numerous methods developed to aid in the study of plant cover, composition and density. This development has not restricted itself to the formulation of new methods but improvement on the old ones as well. Due to this continuous program of development and improvement on range research methods, the range manager is left with a variety of methods from which he can choose to use in his studies. Therefore, not only does the range manager have to define his problem and decide what is to be measured but he also must decide how to measure it, by the most accurate and economical means, This last decision, that of deciding what methods to employ in the study can be a major problem in itself. This problem is brought about mainly by the variety of methods which have been developed to measure the numerous variables in range research.