220 WESTERN GRAZING GROUNDS AND FOREST RANGES 



purposes, a privilege which cannot be granted them by 

 any one on public land outside of the National Forests. 

 This is a valuable privilege, because of the necessity for 

 such pastures in handling the stock. Again, the Forest 

 Service allows the erection of drift fences where such 

 fences are clearly a benefit to the forest, and by this 

 means the drifting of stock from its proper ranges is 

 stopped and the expense of handling the animals much 

 less than where it was necessary to ride for miles to find 

 cattle that had drifted from their owner's range. 



The allotting of the same ranges to stockmen through 

 successive years also tends greatly to increase their per- 

 sonal interest in the preservation of the range, because 

 they know that if they leave their range in good condi- 

 tion in the fall no one else is going to rush in there after 

 they have left it and graze it to the bone before the snow 

 drives them out. Therefore under this system the desire 

 to overgraze an area is not so great, and thus the car- 

 rying capacity of the ranges is continually being im- 

 proved. 



Fees Moderate. It is a well-established fact that the 

 fees charged for grazing on the various National For- 

 ests are on an average not more than one-third those 

 charged for grazing on private lands of equal value. 

 When the National Forests were established it was not 

 the intention to charge such an amount for the grazing 

 privilege as to result in a profit to the Government or 

 place it on a commercial basis, but only to ask the stock- 

 man to pay a just proportion of the administrative ex- 

 pense in handling the National Forests. 



There is no doubt whatever that if the Government 

 adopted the plan followed on the various Indian reserva- 

 tions, which are practically private lands and being 



