12 BULLETIN 1001, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Bureau of Biological Survey in the extermination of predatory and 

 other animals. 



Watering places. — A very important controlling factor in the range- 

 grazing industry is the available supply of stock water [60]. Through- 

 out the arid grazing region, watering places are few in number and 

 widely and unevenly scattered. They are frequently hard to develop 

 and expensive, both in first cost and in maintenance. Yet because 

 the business can not be carried on without them, much money and 

 effort have been expended in their development and in attempts to 

 get them properly distributed over the range. 



Springs and streams (which are very rare) must be protected; 

 reservoirs must be constructed; wells that are often several hundred 

 feet deep must be drilled and expensive pumping machinery installed 

 and maintained; pipe lines miles in length are often necessary. In 

 all cases the watering place must be so arranged that the animals 

 can get to the water easily, and at the same time the source must be 

 protected. Reservoirs or tanks must be constructed to hold a reserve 

 supply to tide over a breakdown in the mechanical equipment. 

 These difficulties have been more and more effectively overcome as 

 the industry has developed, but the investments in these watering 

 places often represent a large part of the capital that stockmen have 

 put into their business. 



Miscellaneous factors. — The low productivity of the land makes 

 imperative the use of a large area as a producing unit. This size 

 factor introduces difficulties of transportation * and communication 

 that can be effectively overcome only by relatively large items of 

 expense or capitalization or both. 



A very important fact, often overlooked when estimates are being 

 made of the area of arid grazing land necessary to support a family, 

 is that the stock ranch furnishes very little food for the family. In 

 this respect it is like a mine or manufacturing business instead of 

 like a farm. Its product must all be sold and all the provisions for 

 the ranch family must be bought. • 



If a stockman has children to be educated, the only way it can be 

 done is to send them to town or hire a private instructor. One 

 method entails the maintenance of a house in town, the other the 

 cost of a private school. In either case the business must carry these 

 added expenses and must produce a correspondingly larger cash 

 income. Hence the stock ranch must produce a much larger net 

 income than a farm which gives the same standard of living, and the 

 income is directly dependent upon the size of the ranch. 



