168 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



Land Office of the Department of the Interior. Indeed, the 

 bulk of the gracing land was controlled by one of those three 

 agencies, and it had been for the most part overgrazed for years. 

 Thus, when herds on the National Forests were reduced, those 

 already overburdened areas received an added blow. 



There was another flaw in the Forest Service method of 

 controlling range land. This was that it gave permits chiefly to 

 the big cattle operators on the theory that by controlling the 

 big herds the greatest amount of grass would be protected. 

 However this may have been, it worked a hardship on the small 

 ranchers who were forced to overgraze other land. And they 

 were least able to bear the burdens that come with overgrazing. 

 Today, that policy has been changed so that grazing permits 

 are issued according to the need of the rancher rather than the 

 size of his herd. According to this reasoning, a man whose only 

 means of support is a small herd of cattle, dependent on Forest 

 range, has a much greater need than a man with several thou' 

 sand head and some land of his own. The big rancher can 

 afford to cut his herd and still make a living. The small operator 

 cannot, therefore he is given preference. 



Since 1910 Forest Experiment Stations in the range states 

 have been working on the problem of range erosion (see page 

 183). It was the Forest Service scientists who discovered and 

 developed the methods of restoring grass to the slopes of the 

 Wasatch range near Salt Lake City. Just how serious that 

 problem was you could understand if you could see the en 

 thusiasm with which Forest Service scientists point to the grass 

 growing on the sides of their little terrace dams at the heads of 

 the canyons grass, real grass, and spreading over the bare 

 patches, holding back the flow of mud and rocks that would 

 sweep down and wipe out the fields stretched out below like 

 squares on a checkerboard. 



At Missoula, Montana, Parker Creek and Tucson, Arizona, 

 on the San Joaquin Experimental Range in California, and 



