FOREST SERVICE. 221 



Grazing permits issued and number of stock grazed, calendar year 1921. 



' Cherokee National Forest included in Tennessee. • 



The change from fiscal to calendar years in reporting number of 

 stock grazed makes it impracticable to compare figures as to number 

 of stock grazed in 1921 with figures for 1920. From such records as 

 are available, however, the total number of stock grazed in the cal- 

 endar year 1921 was less by approximately 470,000 cattle and horses 

 and 165,000 sheep and goats than for the calendar year 1920, with 

 about the same number of permittees, for the reason that financial 

 considerations compelled owners to dispose of their salable stock and 

 prevented replacement by desirable breeding stock. The demand for 

 range, however, was as keen in 1921 as in any other year. Use of 

 the forest ranges was less because of the necessity of relieving certain 

 overstocked ranges and continuing the preferences of established 

 permittees who were forced to liquidate. 



MEASURES NECESSITATED BY FINANCIAL CONDITION OF STOCK INDUSTRY. 



Continued deflation and liquidation characterized the year 1921. 

 The situation of cattle producers was particularly acute. Prices 

 remained very low; operating expenses, while somewhat reduced, 

 were still high, and no adequate means of financing the industry was 

 available. Stock had to be sold for whatever it would bring, and 

 the cattlemen were unable to find funds needed for range improve- 

 ment and for the purchase of bulls to better their herds or to retain 

 young female stock. The depression also prevented the usual and 

 desirable movement of stock from the breeding sections in the 

 Southwest to the ranges and ranches of the Northwest, so that forest 



