74 ajstnual reports of department of agriculture. 



(1) to adjust the number of livestock and the seasons of use so that 

 the forage produced on these areas may increase in volume and 

 quality rather than deteriorate and (2) to provide for an orderly 

 allotment of grazing privileges to the livestock producers most en- 

 titled to them by reason of the location of their ranches and their 

 necessary yearly rotation on spring, summer, and fall ranges. Ex- 

 perience offers no prospect that the orderly and intelligent use of 

 these range lands and the conservation of their forage-producing 

 capacity can be accomplished under any scheme of distribution into 

 private ownership. The task is one that must be assumed by the 

 National Government. 



Placing the open public ranges under regulation will in no sense 

 be inimical to the interests of the recent homesteader or the future 

 settler wherever settlement is possible. On the contrary, the settlers 

 will gain more from range regulation than any other class. A fixed 

 point in grazing administration on the national forests is to recog- 

 nize the settler whose ranch development requires outside pasturage 

 as having a prior claim upon the use of the grazing lands adjacent 

 to his homestead. The milk and work animals of all settlers in or 

 near the national forests are allowed free and undisturbed grazing 

 therein. As the settler accumulates other livestock he is given the 

 range allotments most naturally and economically utilized in con- 

 nection with his home, and is protected in the use of such allotments 

 as against stockmen living farther away and from the nomadic herds 

 of distant owners which move about the country picking up forage 

 wherever it may be found. 



Settlers in or near the national forests who have sought to es- 

 tablish themselves in the livestock business have been in a far more 

 advantageous position to benefit from public range than newcomers 

 in other regions where the unreserved public grazing lands were at 

 all crowded. In fact, many settlers have been unable to establish 

 themselves on public lands because they could not obtain the range 

 needed to supplement their homesteads and have been driven out of 

 the country because the public range lands surrounding them were 

 completely eaten out by the large herds of the established livestock 

 producers in that vicinity. 



The same principles should govern grazing administration on the 

 unreserved domain. Any land that has or may develop agricultural 



