STORY OF OUR NATIONAL FOREST 139 



ulated. On both, big and little, grazers competed 

 for forage. 



But conditions have changed with the greater 

 populations which have come to the West. On the 

 public domain, the small farmer often can acquire 

 sufficient grazing land for his own needs by home- 

 steading, but forest lands cannot be homesteaded 

 and the neighborhood settler must take his chances 

 with great cattle companies. Not only therefore 

 must the Forest Service justly apportion grazing 

 rights among ever increasing competitors, prefer- 

 ring the home-builder, but he must conserve the 

 health of the ranges lest overgrazing, the stockman's 

 historic vice, destroy this national possession also. 



"There is natural sheep range," writes Dr. 

 Herbert A. Smith of the Forest Service, "natural 

 cattle range, and national goat range ; there is range 

 on which it takes fifty acres to support a cow, and 

 range which at its best might carry eighty head of 

 cattle to the quarter section; there is winter range, 

 summer range, and year-long range ; there is range 

 on which the tree growth is no more than scattered 

 brush valuable only for water protection, range on 

 denuded foot hills and mountain slopes, in dense 

 brush, in open parks, in timber that grows wide- 

 spaced and high-crowned so that one may see 

 through it for a mile, and in timber so dense that 

 sheep can scarcely penetrate it." 



This is only the beginning of the problem. 



"The grazing animals may crop seeds for their 



