48 



Grazing Policies 



Great attention was given to favoring the &quot;little 

 nan&quot; in administering the grazing use of the national 

 forests. Provision was made for reducing the permits 

 of larger permittees in order to increase the permits 

 of small operators to a level which would provide 

 a viable enterprise. &quot;Protective limits&quot; were 

 established below which no permit would be reduced 

 for &quot;distribution,&quot; that is, in order to increase other 

 permits. 



This distribution policy was, of course, strongly 

 opposed by the larger permittees. One reason given 

 was that a permittee s ranch property was usually 

 &quot;commensurate&quot; for handling a given number of live 

 stock and if his permit was reduced below that num 

 ber it tended to reduce or destroy the economic feasi 

 bility of his operation. The stability of livestock 

 operations is of great economic importance in 

 the West. After a long period of adjustment 

 between large and small permits, the Forest Service 

 decided it had reached the point where further 

 &quot;distribution&quot; would cause undue instability and 

 the policy was terminated. 



