178 THE IRRIOAT1 ON A GE. 



The Secretary of Agriculture, the hydrographers and agrostolo- 

 gists, and every thoughtful observer who lives in contact with these 

 distressing conditions are agreed in their suggestion of the means of 

 restoration. They are not without a precedent to support their ad- 

 vice. The stock ranges of Australia, under the same physical condi- 

 tions, had the same history. Nearly twenty years ago the Colonial 

 Governments called the stockmen into council, and there was devised 

 a leasing system protecting the rights of agricultural and pastoral 

 freeholders and of large and small stockgrowers. Each one got a 

 leasehold. He confined his stock to it, changed its grazing ground, 

 and carefully nurtured the re- seeding of the forage, with the result 

 that the carrying capacity of the Australian range is now restored to 

 its virgin state. 



Texas owns her own domain. A vast area of it is pastoral and 

 arid. When used free and in common the land became bleak and re- 

 pellant, its forage being destroyed. A steer could barely live on a hun- 

 dred acres. Less than a decade ago, against the opposition of the 

 stockmen, Texas made a leasing law. Now an area of seventeen acres 

 supports a steer. The range is restored, and a proposition to repeal 

 the lease statute would convulse the state. The United States found 

 the range on the Indian reservations destroyed. It leases them; the 

 leaseholders protect a restoration of the forage, and the desert has re- 

 treated before the meadow. Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nebraska, 

 Utah and Wyoming lease their state lands, the school sections, lien 

 lands, etc., for grazing, at an average of one cent and eighty one hun- 

 dredths per acre, and derive from that source an aggregate income of 

 $1,108,754 per annum. The forage on these state leaseholds has been 

 protected to the point of restoration. 



Moved by these examples, and stimulated by the decadence and 

 drouth that follow the extirpation of the forage, the National Live 

 Stock Association, in session at Fort Worth, Texas, two years ago, 

 resolved in favor of a Federal grazing lease. Similar resolutions were 

 passed by the American Cattle Growers' Association, in annual con 

 vention at Denver, March, 1901, with only four dissenting votes, and 

 by the Paciffc Stockmen's Association, in annual convention at San 

 Francisco, January 14, 1902. The Secretary of Agriculture ably sup- 

 ports this proposal in his last report. The President of the United 

 States, in his message of last December, draws a graphic picture of 

 the- destruction wrought by the free use in common of the grazing do- 

 main. The legislation committee of the American ' Cattle Growers' 

 Association has drawn a bill for a Federal leasing act, which, after 

 having been introduced into the House by Mr. Bowerock, of Kansas, 

 appears in Senate Bill 3311, introduced by Mr. Millard, of Nebraska. 

 It leaves every leasehold open to the homestead entry man under ex- 



