160 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



to meet the costs of buying and leasing land for the district, the 

 members must pay a fee for the land they use. If there is more 

 land in the district than the members need, the directors may 

 lease it to non-members. 



If a member of a district objects to the rules, he may appeal 

 to the Gracing Commission, and if he is dissatisfied with that 

 decision he may take his case to the regular law courts. The 

 decision of the Montana Supreme Court is final. 



This law provides that the grazing districts must cooperate 

 with the government agencies which are trying to control land 

 use. Like the rural zoning law of Wisconsin, and the Soil 

 Conservation District law, the Montana law is effective only 

 if the land users in a given area decide to use it. In other words, 

 the federal or state government does not impose a law. It paves 

 the way for the people of each area to make a set of laws to 

 meet their own problems. The only power retained by the state 

 and federal governments is the right to cooperate with and 

 supervise certain conservation work in that area. 



It remains to be seen whether this system of permitting 

 groups of individuals to take over a certain amount of control 

 of land use will be sufficient to make the range again a truly 

 productive resource. To achieve good land use many difficult 

 technical problems must be solved. Many of these problems are 

 not understood by some of the people who use the land. Fre 

 quently, the solution of such problems requires more money 

 than an individual can afford to pay. 



The question is, will or can an individual landowner solve 

 these technical problems alone, or must government agencies 

 step in at some point and demand that certain land-use prac' 

 tices be followed? This is a basic problem in the question of 

 conservation of natural resources. It is also a basic problem in 

 democratic government since it is really a question of the rights 

 of individuals versus the rights of society. 



