9 



purposes. In 1883 the Texas and Pacific Railroad was built tbrougli 

 the heart of the rauge country, and there was an influx both of owners 

 or agents of the lands and of investors who were seeking to acquire 

 free ranges and free grass. Toward the close of this ten-years' shortage 

 of stock there were undoubtedly sections where the native grasses 

 would support 300 head of stock per square mile; and the average 

 carrying capacity of the ranges as a whole was, so far as known, higher 

 than at any time before or since. With the building of the railroad 

 the stock industry underwent a very rapid development. Newcomers 

 who had not seen the land when it was possessed by the Indian, the 

 buffalo and mustang, at the time when the herbage was eaten down, or 

 kept in check by fires or drought, naturally thought that this rich 

 profusion of vegetation was the normal condition and that the saying 

 that it was impossible to i)ut enough cows on the land to eat all the 

 grass was literally true. The result was a rapid and exhausting over- 

 stocking of every available square mile of range land. The best grasses 

 were eaten down to their very roots, the roots were trampled into the 

 earth, and every green thing was cut down so that it could neither rii)en 

 seed, and thus perpetuate its kind, nor recover from the trampling and 

 exjiosure of its roots to the air and sun. The recuperative power of 

 the grasses was lessened or destroyed, and weedy species which were 

 present before, but which had been held in check by the luxuriance of 

 the better, dominant sorts, immediately increased in number by rapid 

 bounds. So also the mesquite bean and the cactus, both of which may 

 be destroyed by fire, grew in numbers and commenced to crowd out 

 the grasses. 



OVERSTOCKING THE RANGE. 



There are many square miles of territory in the Southwest where the 

 ruthless destruction of grass has been carried to the extent mentioned 

 above. The grazing capacity of large bodies of land has been reduced 

 within a period of twenty years from one head to 2 to 5 acres, to one 

 head to 20 or 25 acres. As late as 1883 from 128 to 320 head of cattle 

 could be supported on a single section, where to support a like number 

 now requires from 4 to 12 square miles. Where the conditions have 

 been especially unfavorable, stockmen report that it sometimes requires 

 60 acres i)er head, and the laud there is almost bare of vegetation. 

 Su(;h denuded areas occur in New Mexico and Arizona, aud are due 

 almost entirely to the ruthless destruction of free grass on public lands. 



The chief cause of overstocking in the first place was the free-range 

 system, under which lands owned by the State, public institutions, or 

 corporations, under the common law and in the absence of the owners 

 or their agents, were considered as commons upon which any man was 

 free to pasture all the cattle or sheep which he could command. The 

 holding or use of lands in common always results in rapine, because of 

 the principle that what is everyone's property is no one's, and no one 

 is responsible for its abuse and spoliation. Because the legal owners. 



