TENURE AND USE OF ARID GRAZING LANDS, 



51 



a crop would be merely an incident in his business and would mean 

 only a smaller total income than usual. A partial failure of a grain 

 crop is not proportionally so great a loss to the stockman, because 

 if he gets as much forage off the plowed land as it would have pro- 

 duced in native grass he has lost nothing but the work and the cost 

 of the seed; but the failure of crops for several years spells absolute 

 disaster to the crop farmer. That any and all known cultivated 

 crops will fail on such areas a certain number of seasons in a period 

 of years has been demonstrated time and time again and the gener- 

 alization can be accepted as proved. 



It has been urged that if the existing homestead laws be allowed 

 to operate for a sufficiently long time, the lands will pass into private 

 ownership, and the necessary adjustments in the sizes of holdings 

 can then be made by the owners. Such a contention is true only 

 when all the lands are privately owned. This condition is reached 

 only after long delay or not at all, because much of the land is so 

 poor that no one wants it. Even small scattered areas of such public 

 land to a very large degree prevent the fencing of the remainder. 



The annual reports of the Commissioner of the General Land Office 

 show that while some land is being homesteaded a part of it is being 

 left in all of the States of the arid grazing region, ranging in amount 

 from a small part in the State of Washington to more than three- 

 fourths in Nevada. The rate at which the lands have been taken in 

 these Western States differs with the State and fluctuates with the 

 years, but shows a general tendency to decrease in all of them. The 

 fluctuations do not seem to be in any way correlated with the changes 

 in land legislation. The one important fact that is deducible from 

 the data is that much of the land is being left as public domain. 

 Table 7 shows the total acreage entered each year since 1910 in 

 each of the 11 Western States. The area still open for entry in 

 1920 and the total area of each State are also given for comparison. 



Table 7. 



■Total entries 1 of public lands (all classes) for the 11 Western States 1910- 

 19°20, inclusive. 











[Millions of acres 



•] 















Year. 



1910 



1911 



1912 



1913 



1914 



1915 



1916 



1917 



1918 



1919 



1920 



Area 

 stiU 

 avail- 

 able 

 1920. 



Size 

 of 



State. 





0.5 



1.2 



3.8 



1.7 



6.5 



.2 



1.9 



1.0 



.5 



.5 



1.4 



0.5 



1.1 



2.1 



1.1 



4.3 



.3 



1.4 



.7 



.5 



.4 



1.-2 



0.7 

 .9 



1.2 

 .8 



3.6 

 .3 



1.1 

 .7 

 .5 

 .3 

 .5 



0.8 



.9 



1.3 



1.0 



3.7 



.2 



2.3 



.6 



.2 



.3 



.7 



0.8 

 .9 



1.3 

 .9 



5.3 

 .2 



1.9 

 .8 

 .2 

 .3 

 .9 



0.3 

 1.0 



2.5 

 1.1 

 4.1 

 .3 

 3.3 

 .7 

 .4 

 .3 

 .8 



1.9 



.6 

 2.9 

 1.1 



3.7 

 .2 



2.8 

 .6 

 .3 

 .2 



1.4 



1.4 



.7 



1.9 

 .8 



3.8 

 .1 



1.9 

 .4 

 .3 

 .3 



1. f. 



1.2 



.3 

 1.1 



.6 

 2.4 

 .1 

 1.0 

 .3 

 .2 

 .1 

 1.2 



0.5 

 .5 



1.6 

 .7 



1.6 

 .3 



2.2 

 .4 

 .2 

 .1 



2.3 



1.8 

 .9 



1.8 

 .9 



2.2 

 .2 



1.5 



1.0 

 .4 

 .2 



3.9 



18.3 

 19.6 



8.9 

 8.8 

 6.0 

 54.2 

 18.4 

 14.0 

 30.0 

 1.1 

 19.7 



72.9 





101.3 





66.5 



Idaho 



56.7 



Montana 



94.1 



Nevada 



70.8 





78.5 





61.9 



Utah 



54.4 



Washington 



44.2 



Wyoming. , 



62.7 







1 Entry is the term used for all sorts of applications for public land that have been allowed by the officials 

 of the land office. The area ultimately patented is usually considerably less than the area originally 

 entered. 



