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



Ordinarily the land carrying the -water is owned by the user, though 

 he may lease it from a railroad company, from the State, an Indian 

 reservation, or other owner. Ownership has sometimes been obtained 

 by homesteading, sometimes by placing lieu land scrip on it. Some- 

 times the water is covered by a patented mining claim, or, if it is on 

 unsurveyed land, rights may be acquired by a settlement made by 

 a qualified homesteader for the purpose of subsequently making 

 homestead entry after the lands are surveyed, and such rights can 

 be maintained only by substantially continuous occupation and the 

 right to all improvements which he may make or purchase from a 

 former occupant. Sometimes the water is on a mining claim that is 

 not patented, but tenure of the claim is maintained by doing the 

 ordinary assessment work each year. 13 



To-day the open range is held on a tacit agreement among stock- 

 men that the stock water will be used in common, each man develop- 

 ing enough for the number of animals he puts on the range. The 

 feed also must be used in common, since each ranch is bounded only 

 by the imaginary line passing halfway between its watering places 

 and those of the nearest neighbors all around it. Thus feed and 

 water, salt and bulls, must be used in common, and individual control of 

 their businesses is not possible for most of the stockmen of the region. 



Notwithstanding the undesirable and irritating conditions that 

 surround the industry, the old policy of "eat out the range and move 

 on" has been discarded forever. The men who now carry on the 

 industry are as permanently located as men in other kinds of business 

 and are anxious to develop it as rapidly as possible if the opportunity 

 is given them. That opportunity can be given only by proper land 

 legislation. 



As an indication of what men will do to get control of the ranges 

 they use, some data as to the use-control of the lands inside the 

 Atlantic and Pacific land-grant area are presented. 



In the study of grazing lands previously referred to, some data were obtained rela- 

 tive to the actual control of the lands of the region examined. 14 The lands originally 

 granted to the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Co. have been sold or leased to many 

 companies and individuals. The existing use-control of the region is very largely 

 determined by the present legal tenure of these lands, though the disposition of the 

 State lands of the area is also an important factor. Stockmen have bought or leased 

 large areas of this land in the hope of controlling as nearly as may be all the land they 

 use. A few of the holdings are completely consolidated, under one form of tenure or 

 another, and are partly or all fenced. 



The sizes of the range units shown in Table 4 are approximately the amounts of 

 land that individual stockmen use (occasionally in common with others who have 

 little or no equities) by virtue of having bought or leased most or all of the lands of 

 their ranges that could be so obtained. The proportion of each range so held varies 

 from more than half to all of it. 



13 The minimum amount of development work on the claim required by law to maintain possession. 

 u This information was obtained through the courtesy of the officials of the Santa Fe Railroad Co., St. 

 Louis & San Francisco Railroad Co., Aztec Land and Cattle Co., and numerous individuals. 



