THE GRASS LANDS 143 



to the Pacific slope and north and south from Canada to Mex' 

 ico, was a wasteland. 



In 1879 the federal government sent Major Powell on an 

 expedition to explore this country. It wanted to get a complete 

 and accurate account of exactly what there was there and 

 Major Powell turned in just such a report. Not only did he tell 

 what he saw, but he laid out a plan of how that land might 

 be used. 



Essentially, his plan was to put into law the practices which 

 had grown up with the early range users. 7 He realised that the 

 plains region was primarily gracing land. The major task was 

 to prevent the misuse of the grass. 



According to Major Powell there were three important 

 ways to prevent this misuse of grass. In the first place, he 

 believed that the Homestead Act of 1862 gave too small an 

 area of land. He argued, and wisely, that a man couldn't make 

 a living on 160 acres in the range country. That might be 

 enough in the East where there was plenty of rain. In the 

 western regions, with less than twenty inches of annual rain' 

 fall, Powell figured that a man would need 2,560 acres if he 

 was to raise a large enough crop to support himself and his 

 family. And this crop would not be grains and intensively oil' 

 tivated plants, such as were grown in the East, but cattle which 

 would grase on the natural range. In addition to this, Major 

 Powell thought each homesteader should have some area capa- 

 ble of being irrigated, so that he would be able to grow a large 

 part of his own food and winter feed for his cattle when the 

 ranges would not support them. 



Powell's third idea was that the land should not be laid out 

 in geometric squares, but in such a way that each settlement 

 should have. water for its stock and natural boundaries wher' 

 ever possible. This division would put water within reach of 

 all the people. His final proposal was that the ranch houses 



7 Parkins and Whitaker, op. ctt., p. 123. 



