THE RANGE PROBLEM. 



A DESCRIPTION OF THE STOCKMAN'S HOMESTEAD 

 AND GRAZING RANGE ADMINISTRATION IN THE 

 WEST, WITH SUGGESTIONS FOR ITS IMPROVEMENT. 



BY 



PROFESSOR R. H. FORBES, 



DIRECTOR OF ARIZONA AGRICULTURAL KXPERIMENT STATION. 



THE industrial condition which mercies of the next and more ruthless 

 governs throughout more than occupant who may still find something 

 400,000,000 acres of western public convertible thereon, 

 grazing lands has been described many The effect of this unregulated and 

 times recently in articles discussing the destructive tenure varies greatly with 

 question of the proper disposal of these those conditions of soil, topography, 

 lands. In general, the situation is rainfall, heat, and frost which affect the 

 everywhere the same, temporary occu- endurance of a grazing country. More 

 pation without ownership or legal pos- favored districts in more northerly, 

 sessory rights by stockmen of that pub- humid, or elevated situations still re- 

 lic domain whose purpose is to provide tain an important fraction of their pri- 

 room and opportunity as long and as meval value ; but in portions of the 

 fully as possible for the nation's rapidly southwest where the soils are sandy 

 expanding population. and easily washed, where the rainfall is 

 Mindful of such an important utility light and often untimely, where the hot, 

 for our public lands, any damage to the dry climate causes enormous evapora- 

 national asset must be considered, vir- tion, and where, consequently, the ef- 

 tually, as a sacrifice of national terri- fects of unregulated grazing are most 

 tory, inasmuch as its impairment means destructive, many great areas of for- 

 the loss of so much foothold and work- merly grassy country may be safely 

 ing room for prospective settlers. Yet stated to be capable of supporting not 

 exactly this has been the result of the one-tenth of the stock that once ranged 

 misfit application of existing land laws there, 

 to western conditions. These laws, vir- 

 tually inoperative in a grazing country, 



have necessarily been supplemented by It maybe assumed, probably without 



the unwritten law of the range, framed exaggerating the loss, that the public 



and enforced by those strong enough to grazing ranges of the West now aver- 



take and hold possession for a brief age not more than half of their original 



term of years. value lands, too, which can never be 



EFFECTS OF OVERGRAZING. g ated "? f r Which ^ is fl P OS / 



sible use but as grazing territory. Dit- 



The result of such occupation is, ferently stated, this means that the 



usually, that excessive numbers of ani- United States, for want of proper laws 



mals are put upon this free pasture, the to govern its public domain, has suf- 



profits are run up as quickly as possible fered a loss equal in effective value to, 



while yet the range remains free, and say, 200,000,000 acres of grazing lands, 



then when the grass is gone, when the an area greater than the state of Texas 



plains and hillsides are converted into or equal to a strip of territory 230 miles 



gullied barrens, and oftentimes, when wide extending from the Rio Grande 



the profits of the first years are canceled to the Canadian boundary. It is evi- 



by the losses of later ones, the nation's dent that only the wreckage of western 



ruined estate is abandoned to the tender grazing values remains to be legislated 



(476) 



