54 BULLETIN" 1001, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



would-be improvers can not agree and are squabbling among them- 

 selves for personal advantage instead of seeking a general improve- 

 ment in range management such as they profess to be doing. 



While objections to a lease law of general application may be rec- 

 ognized, there are particular cases where it might be the best form of 

 legalized control. Some disadvantages arising from the private own- 

 ership of lands are known to exist, and certain advantages to both 

 the public and the user of the lands have been shown to result from 

 public ownership of them. If a policy of public ownership of the 

 land were temporarily or permanently followed, the most easily 

 applied system of control for small areas of public lands scattered 

 among large areas of privately owned lands would doubtless be a 

 properly restricted leasing system. The regions to which this 

 method would best apply are now not very numerous; they are to 

 be found mostly in the railroad land-grant strips. The area of land 

 which could be handled best in that way, though amounting to hun- 

 dreds of thousands of acres, or possibly a few millions, forms a rela- 

 tively small percentage of the land that needs a control system of 

 some kind. Such lands could be most quickly transferred to private 

 owners by selling them. 



The same disadvantage that lies in a policy of unlimited sale is also 

 found, to a less degree, in a leasing policy, i. e., the men who have 

 most money have advantages over poorer men, unless restrictions be 

 placed upon the amount of land one operator may lease. And it is 

 almost impossible to include such limits in the law itself; they must 

 be determined locally and temporarily upon the merits of the partic- 

 ular case. 



Under existing conditions, any system of leasing must be so 

 hedged about by restrictions and limitations in order that it may be 

 fair to all, and the adininistrative authority must have such large 

 discretionary powers in order that the law may be interpreted with 

 sufficient elasticity to fit the varied conditions of location and time, 

 that such a system is really nothing but a permit system. But the 

 converse is also true. After the desirable classification of the land 

 has been learned by experience and its subdivision into proper-sized 

 units has been accomplished and the users have received long-time 

 permits, the permit system as applied to such conditions is little if 

 any different from a restricted leasing system. 



The permit system has the advantage in that it is suited to present 

 conditions and automatically changes into the other form as condi- 

 tions warrant, while a leasing system that is adjusted to the present 

 conditions is one in name only. 



Consolidation of scattered holdings. — Consolidation by the method 

 of exchange has been proposed, privately owned land to be traded for 

 public land of equal value, so as to bring together lands of similar 



