502 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Morning Journal the following summary appeared: 



"The entrymen who will file on these lands consist of 

 three classes: a small portion of them are looking for 

 tillable soil on which to make a home; about one-third of 

 them want to take up 640 acres as a nucleus for a small 

 stock ranch, while the greater number are persons who 

 hope to prove up on 640 acres and then sell at a good 

 price." Continuing, this paper says : "The assassination 

 of the late Thomas Lyons of Grant County is said to have 

 been due to a feud he had with several 640-acre entry- 

 men who had sent him word that he must buy them out if 

 he wanted to keep his range intact." 



The situation revealed by this frank statement brings 

 out in clear relief the evils which will follow the applica- 

 tion of this law. Not ten per cent of the applicants can 

 actually support themselves from the grazing on 640 

 acres, hence the sole object of the filing will be to obtain 

 private title to government land, in order to hold up 

 some one who can make use of it, by "selling out at a 

 high price." 



The grazing business requires large units, and is the 

 only possible use for most of this land. Once the land 

 is fenced ofT by numerous 640-acre land speculators, 

 whose sole hope of return lies in selling to these stock- 

 men, the grazing business is immediately disrupted on an 

 enormous scale, and cannot be resumed until after the 

 three-year period required for the applicants to prove up, 

 and the completion of negotiations for the purchase of 

 the lands. But if these lands are held at speculative 

 prices, either the overhead charges for capital and in- 

 terest on the grazing business will be enormously in- 

 creased, or the stockmen will be driven out at least tem- 

 porarily. Ultimately, by the ruthless operation of eco- 

 nomic laws, grazing units will be reassembled of suf- 

 ficient size to permit the industry to resume its functions. 

 The worst effects of this speculative raid upon the 

 arid public lands was postponed by the requirements that 

 the ofificials of the Interior Department must first exam- 

 ine and classify the land as non-irrigable, non-timbered, 

 and chiefly valuable for grazing, and the raising of forage 

 crops. But the delays caused by this safeguarding of 

 public interests are proving too irksome for the .specu- 

 'ators, and by a recent amendment offered by a south- 

 western senator, all barriers are swept away and the 

 applicant can file on any unreserved public land regard- 

 less of its character, whether timbered or otherwise. 

 Should this amendment pass, the flood-gates are open and 



the public lands will disappear over night in the worst 

 scramble the West has ever seen. 



We hold no brief for the cattle baron or sheep man, 

 who in the past has monopolized the free range, fenced 

 up the waterholes and driven out the homesteader by 

 intimidation and violence. He should long ago have 

 been made to pay into the public treasury the value of 

 the grazing privileges on public lands, just as today he 

 is paying for his grazing rights on both National Forests 

 and Indian Reservations. But the stockmen fought this 

 measure and now find themselves facing ruin on the 

 other horn of the dilemma. 



In this contest for private gain, where does the public 

 profit, and what thought is being devoted to the stimula- 

 tion of the meat production on the western range? 

 Whatever other effects the Fall amendment to the stock 

 gazing bill will have, it will at once and seriously decrease 

 the production of meat, at the very moment when our 

 national existence is threatened, and the triumph of hu- 

 man liberty and democracy depends directly upon in- 

 creasing the food supply. And to add a touch of satire 

 to this vicious legislation, the amendment recently passed 

 the Senate as a rider to the food bill. 



How long will the nation continue to close its eyes 

 to the fact that public welfare cannot always be best 

 served by permitting the unrestricted operation of private 

 greed ? The new doctrine of public supervision and regu- 

 lation for the good of the whole is winning its way 

 slowly. The National Forests are the bulwarks of these 

 principles. The history of the public range outside of 

 the Forests may well be studied as an object lesson in 

 the effects of unrestrained individual initiative. 



This enormous and costly economic readjustment of 

 the business of meat production on the Western ranges 

 would probably have had to come some time, for the rea- 

 son that the political pressure by states and localities 

 seeking development and increased state revenue from 

 taxation find no balancing or opposing force in the De- 

 partment of the Interior, whose traditional policy is to 

 dispose as rapidly as possible of public lands within its 

 jurisdiction. 



But that this movement should have been permitted 

 to come to a head just when its disturbing effects upon 

 meat production are most serious and keenly felt and 

 that the very bill passed to conserve the nation's food 

 supply should be selected as the vehicle for its passage, 

 betrays the utter disregard for public welfare and short- 

 sighted selfishness inherent in the doctrine of individual- 

 ism. Such measures will not aid us to win the war. 



T'HE College of Forestry of the University of Wash- 

 ington, one of the earliest of the forestry schools 

 in the West, has been forced by the war emergency to 

 entirely change its scholastic plan. The calendar for 

 the coming year just issued, announces that all regis- 

 trations have been postponed in this college until Oc- 

 tober 1, and that the university has elected for the 

 period of the war to substitute the four quarter plan 

 for the college year instead of the usual semester plan. 



AS an interesting development in the wartime use 

 for wood, it is stated by the authorities that the 

 mobilization camp at the State Fair grounds, Syracuse, 

 where 25,000 men are quartered, consumes more than 

 33 cords of wood a day for cooking purposes, or a total 

 of 1,000 cords a month. This would represent the ma- 

 terial obtained from necessary thinning and improve- 

 ment cuttings in half a dozen good-sized New York 

 farm woodlots. 



