212 AGRICULTURAL APPROPRIATION BILL, 1924. 



We have tried to meet this situation in a human wav and recocrnize 

 the acute conditions in the industry. Our deferred payments for 

 the grazing year of 1921 have all been cleaned up with the exception 

 of S78,000, out of a business of S2, 400, 000; and a portion of that 

 will be recoverable without legal action. Tlie receipts for the pres- 

 ent grazing season will probably all be paid by the time limits set, 

 with the exception of a very small percentage, and the great bulk of 

 that can be recovered without the necessit}' of legal action, because 

 the grazing industry of the West is gradually getting back on its feet. 



Our great problem in the handling of the grazing business is the 

 intensity of the demand for national lorest range, arising largeh^ from 

 the extent to which the old open public range has been taken up 

 by settlement and the fact that the absence of any regulation of ihc 

 open public ranges still remaining has resulted in their very serious 

 deterioration at many points. That is forcing a good many stock- 

 men to seek new range and it tends to crowd sheep and cattle on the 

 national forests and make the administration of our grazing more 

 difficult. 



I am going to speak of that again in connection with the specific 

 item of range improvement because it is a very practical question 

 we have to meet. 



LAND PERMITS. 



I want to refer briefly to the land business, something that has not 

 been mentioned very often in these hearings. We have outstanding 

 nearly 27,000 permits for the use of lands in the national forests. 

 They cover almost every conceivable variety of land use. There are 

 many industrial establishments, sawmills and mercantile institutions, 

 fish canning plants in Alaska, and that sort of thing, down to summer 

 homes and small pastures used in connection with grazing permits. 



This demand for the use of the national forests in varied ways is 

 increasing very rapidly, particularh' in connection with recreation. 

 We issued last year some 1,500 more permits than at any time 

 previously, arising largely from the demand of the people as they go 

 into the national forests seeking recreation for permits to use small 

 bits of land for permanent summer homes. It is a wholesome uso 

 and I think a use that should be encouraged. 



PROTECTION AGAINST FOREST FIRES. 



The fire situation during the past season has been what I would call 

 normal or average. The large fires reported from the Western States 

 (luring the summer and from ^lijinesota during the fall were not on 

 the national forests, although the national forests shared in the gen- 

 eral hazard to a considerable extent. In fact, the national forests 

 liave fafed very well tills past summer considering the extent of the 

 losses in the regions around them. That is partly because of our 

 organization and partly because, as our lands lie usually at a higher 

 elevation, they fare ])etter in the periods of summer drought than tho 

 lands lower down and around them. 



W(^ now have between 5,800 and (i.OOO fires each season. During 

 the past two seasons these have burned over about .^70,000 acres each 

 year, or al)out two-tenths of 1 per cent of the area of the national 

 forests. I am not satisfied with this showin<r. as I have set the <roal 



