274 THE PUBLIC DOMAIN GRAZING ADMINISTRATION 



Heretofore no governmental agency or organization has been 

 charged with the administration of the public domain. It is estimated 

 by the Division of Grazing that approximately 120,000,000 acres is 

 usable grazing land. Substantially none is valuable for farming. Con- 

 flicts between cattle men and sheep men as well as between ranchers 

 and homesteaders have been frequent and somtimes serious. Because 

 of the checkerboard pattern of most of the public and privately owned 

 grazing land in the western states it has not been usual, for ranchers 

 to fence their private holdings except in the more settled portions. 

 A law prohibits the fencing of the public domain. Most of the public 

 range has been seriously over-grazed; in some sections the pasture 

 has been totally destroyed and erosion is gullying the land. Settled 

 communities are generally very uncommon in this great area of graz- 

 ing lands. 



There is some timber found on portions of the public domain, par- 

 ticularly at the higher elevations and mountainous sections of the 

 western states. As noted elsewhere, there are reported to be 22 million 

 acres of wholly or partially timbered lands still unappropriated or 

 unreserved within the public domain. 



Under the Taylor Grazing Act the Secretary of the Interior is au- 

 thorized to provide for the protection, administration, regulation, and 

 improvement of the grazing districts and to enter into cooperative 

 agreements to insure the proper use of them. Grazing permits are to 

 be issued to future users. Fifty per cent of the receipts from grazing 

 fees under the Taylor Act is to be returned to the states in which the 

 grazing district is located, 25 per cent is retained in the U. S. Treasury 

 and 25 per cent is authorized to be appropriated by Congress for 

 range improvements. Authority is granted to continue research in 

 erosion and flood control and to carry on activities for the protection 

 and rehabilitation of the grazing districts under the Secretary of the 

 Interior. No land is being opened to homestead entries unless classi- 

 fied as more valuable for the production of agricultural crops than for 

 forage plants. 



The Taylor Act provides constructive administration and the re- 

 habilitation of the most neglected portions of the public land holdings 

 in the West. There has been some local sentiment in the western 

 states in favor of turning over the public domain to the individual 

 states. The general national sentiment, however, has been against 

 this. 



