STOCK ON RANGES IN NATIONAL FORESTS 215 



range, the question must be seriously considered before 

 action is taken upon it. If the silvicultural projects will 

 not be injured and the sheep can be grazed without in- 

 terference with the cattlemen using the range, it may 

 generally be looked upon favorably; but if public senti- 

 ment is opposed to it, as in the California case men- 

 tioned, and the sheep can not be grazed without more 

 or less interfering with the stock already there, it should 

 not be granted. These questions must naturally be con- 

 sidered and each case decided upon its own particular 

 merits, because no general rule can be laid down which 

 will apply alike to all. 



Cattle vs. Sheep. In the opinion of many sheepmen 

 the Forest Service has discriminated against their in- 

 dustry in favor of the cattle-raiser. While not admit- 

 ting discrimination in the sense meant by the sheepmen, 

 the Service holds that they are handling forested areas 

 and not stock ranges, and that all stock grazing being 

 primarily more or less objectionable from the point of 

 view of a forester they are justified in encouraging the 

 grazing of the class of stock which in their judgment 

 does the least damage to the forest areas. 



Another point is the character of the business. From 

 the days of Abraham the sheepman has been a nomad 

 and the cattle-raiser a tiller of the soil. The Forest 

 Service believes, and rightly, that the settler who takes 

 up a little piece of land and makes a home for himself 

 and family is entitled to first consideration in the use of 

 the range about him. Every such settler has as part and 

 parcel of his home-building operations a few horses and 

 cattle, and must graze them near his habitation. The 

 sheepman, on the contrary, can drive his herds to the 

 feed, and wherever night overtakes him there he is at 

 home. 



