NATIONAL FOREST RESOURCES 201 



tional Forests. The Forests contain by far the 

 largest part of the summer range lands in the far 

 Western States and hence are of paramount im- 

 portance. The winter_grazing lands in the West < 

 are so much greater in area than the summer lands, 

 that for this reason also National Forest range 

 lands are in great demand. 



Permits Issued in 1917. During the fiscal year 

 1917 more than 31,000 permits to graze cattle, hogs, 

 or horses, and over 5,500 permits to graze sheep 

 or goats were issued. These permits provided for 

 2,054,384 cattle, 7,586,034 sheep, about 100,000 

 horses, about 50,000 goats, and about 3,000 hogs. 

 The total receipts for 1917 were over $1,500,000. 

 The gross receipts to the owners of the stock 

 probably exceeded $50,000,000 and the capital in- 

 vested in the stock no doubt amounted to over 

 $200,000,000. 



An idea of the growth of the grazing business 

 may be gotten from the Forest Service statistics for 

 the fiscal yea'*s 1908 and 1917. The increase in 

 the number of permits and the volume of the busi- 

 ness is due primarily to a better administration and 

 better regulation of grazing interests and more 

 specifically to the increase in the carrying capacity 



