3 02 



Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 



watersheds. Almost every city in the 

 mountain and coastal West derives its 

 water supply from those streams, either 

 direct or through underground sources. 

 All power developments are on streams 

 that rise in the national forests. 



The national forests occupy less of 

 the watershed area in the eastern half 

 of the country, but do include some of 

 the important watersheds. 



Mismanaged forest and range land 

 can and does have large adverse effect 

 on water flows in the form of floods, 

 erosion, and diminished supply. Some 

 of the largest reservoirs in the West are 

 silting up at a rate that will seriously 

 diminish their storage capacity in less 

 than two generations. This silting is 

 due in considerable part to misuse of 

 range lands outside the national for- 

 ests. The obvious serious consequences 

 of forest and range denudation gives 

 complete validity to conservation poli- 

 cies in effect on the national forests 

 even if water alone were involved. 



SOME GRAZING of cattle, sheep, and 

 horses is allowed on nearly every na- 

 tional forest, but it is in the West that 

 this resource and its use assumes major 

 proportions. The national forest range 

 is mostly summer range and comple- 

 ments home ranches or ranges that pro- 

 vide pasturages the rest of the year. 

 Some southwest ranges are yearlong. 



National forest ranges in 1947 sup- 

 ported 1,247,000 cattle and horses 

 (mostly cattle) and 3,409,000 sheep. 

 There were 21,798 paid permits and 

 6,762 free permits, the latter for small 

 numbers of milk cows or horses needed 

 for domestic purposes. The average 

 paid permit in the western forests was 

 for 67 head of cattle and horses; that 

 for sheep, 1,073 head. Most permits run 

 for 10 years. 



More than 800 local advisory boards, 

 the representatives of permit holders, 

 help fix policies and programs and give 

 advice on range administration. 



As with timber, the policy is to man- 

 age the ranges on a sustained-yield 

 basis. Stocking must be adjusted to 

 grazing capacity. Unfortunately many 



ranges are overstocked, for several rea- 

 sons, in spite of substantial reductions 

 over a long period. About half of the 

 10,000 range allotments require fur- 

 ther adjustments. They range all the 

 way from minor changes in methods of 

 management to heavy reductions in 

 the numbers of livestock and, in a few 

 cases, total closure to grazing use. 



Before reductions are made, it is the 

 policy to discuss the matter with the 

 permit holder, give him a chance to 

 ride the range with the forest officer, 

 and, if the cut is heavy, to spread it 

 over several years. 



Reliance is not placed on reductions 

 alone to relieve the overgrazed ranges. 

 Employed also is better management of 

 the stock on the range, more range im- 

 provements to facilitate management 

 (fences, water developments, and the 

 like), reseeding, and the reduction of 

 rodent damage and poisonous weeds, 

 which prevent full use of some ranges. 



The established fees for grazing use 

 are based on a comparison of the value 

 of national forest ranges with what 

 stockmen pay for private and other 

 publicly owned ranges, but with liberal 

 discounts that bring the national forest 

 fees well below those paid for other 

 comparable ranges. Fees are adjusted 

 each year according to the market price 

 of livestock the preceding year in 11 

 Western States. 



In earlier years, the policy was to en- 

 courage rather liberal redistribution of 

 the grazing privilege to accommodate 

 new applicants or increase the permits 

 of those who were permitted num- 

 bers too small to make anything like a 

 stable enterprise. In the interest of sta- 

 bility of established enterprise, the pol- 

 icy has been modified so that for many 

 years there has been little redistribu- 

 tion, and none is contemplated during 

 the 10-year permit period, that began 

 in 1946, except such as may be possible 

 through limited reductions in permits 

 when an outfit sells out and the prefer- 

 ence is transferred to a successor. 



WILDLIFE is regarded as one of the 

 major resources of the national forests, 



