KEYNOTE ADDRESS 



By The Honorable Thomas L. Judge 

 Governor of the State of Montana 



It is an honor and a very great pleasure indeed to welcome all of you 

 to the Nation's first Governor's Conference on Rangeland. 



The myths, folklore, and songs of the daily routines of the cowboy are 

 the material for the literatiire and art considered the world over as the 

 most truly American. On the prairies and mountains of the west, the tradi- 

 tional national virtues of independence and courage have been most thorough- 

 ly represented by the cowboy to the popular imagination. Whether or not 

 the song, "Home on the Range", was written by a cowboy, it, for decades car- 

 ried the flavor of the free, open and majestic west to the city dwellers of 

 our nation. 



Because of the highly romanticized and much discussed role of the cow- 

 boy on American society, and because of the critical role of the livestock 

 industry in the economy of Montana as well as many other western states, I 

 am both pleased and disappointed that Montana is the site of the first Gov- 

 ernor's Conference on Rangeland. I am pleased that we are gathered this week 

 in Billings to discuss ways of improving this vital industry. It provides 

 to my mind further recognition of the pioneering efforts in rangeland man- 

 agement undertaken in Montana over the years. I cannot, however, help but 

 be disappointed that this conference is occurring over a century after the 

 livestock industry began in Montana and the West. 



Agriculture is today our state's number one industry, and as it has 

 always been, one of our most important. Livestock and livestock products 

 still comprise the major segment, representing 52 percent of that industry. 

 In 1974» cash receipts, excluding government payments, totaled $430 million. 

 That same year, the state contained over three million cattle and more than 

 700,000 sheep. We have within ovir borders 54 million acres of rangeland, 

 and eleven and a half million acres of grazable timber land - - 70 percent 

 of the enormous surface area of Montana is grassland. 



These statistics, however, do not begin to describe the importance of 

 rangeland to the livestock industry to the cultiire and quality of life of 

 our state. I could muster figures about hunter success ratios and license 



