EEPORT OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 75 



^ aliie should be available for settlement exactly as similar land has 

 been made available for settlement within the national forests. And 

 settlers whose home building depends upon livestock should be 

 given priority in the allotment of range accessible for their use. 

 While the bulk of the remaining public lands are not capable of 

 settlement and must, as far as can now be foreseen, remain primarily 

 range lands for all time to come, a system of public range regulation 

 would promote and foster settlement wherever it may become 

 feasible to a far greater extent than under the present unregulated 

 and destructive use of these areas. 



No group of men understands this situation or realizes the necessity 

 for action more clearly than the western stock growers themselves. 

 They know that their business can not be satisfactorily organized or 

 accorded an adequate basis for credit until stable tenure in the use of 

 the open public ranges can be secured and the deterioration of these 

 pastures brought to an end. There is a general demand from the 

 livestock interests of the West that some form of grazing adminis- 

 tiation be extended over the unreserved public lands. In many cases 

 local livestock interests have petitioned Congress to add considerable 

 areas to the national forests, not because they had any value for 

 timber production but because these people wanted the benefits and 

 protection of the national-forest system of grazing administration. 

 One or two additions of this character have been made by acts of 

 Congress in response to local public sentiment. Many areas of open 

 public range lands which form logical portions of grazing units now 

 partly within the national forests could, in fact, be most economi- 

 cally and effectively administered by adding them to the forests. 

 The Department of Agriculture regards this as a sound and common- 

 sonse extension of the national forest system in meeting obvious 

 present-day needs of the West; but to the extent that such a 

 j)olicy is adopted it should be with a clear understanding that the 

 Ijiilk of the lands involved are treeless and have no prospective value 

 for growing trees. If they are added to the national forests it will 

 Jiot be ordinarily for the production of timber or the protection of 

 water sources, but primarily for the protection and regulated use 

 of range. 



There are many other areas of open public land which do not ad- 

 join nntional forests, and which, if placed under public administra- 



