GRAZING FEES — GUARANTY PEICE ON WHEAT. 1] 



per cent advance was in deference to the insistence of this committee 

 that they get more money out of the reserves, and that may explain 

 Mr. Graves's present attitude. I do not know. But we have always 

 understood that the Forest Service thought they were getting along 

 pretty well with the grazing charges they had and the advances were 

 always the result of the attitude of this committee, and it was with 

 that view that I thought a subcommittee ought to go out. When 

 the 5-year permit system ends,! have no doubt that' the Forester 

 T^.'ll make his recommendations as to the fees and that the Secretary 

 of Agriculture will submit them to us so that we can have an oppor- 

 tunity to consider their reasonableness. That, however, is Oiir last 

 court of resort; we can not go beyond the Secretary. That is one of 

 the unfortunate things, I think, in the administration of t^'e national 

 forests — there is no court review on it. We are therefore hoping 

 that some members of the committee might go out and familiarize 

 themselves with the conditions. 



Mr. EtTBEY. I think it would be a good thing if the whole Agri- 

 cultural Committee spent a" month out in the national forests, not 

 only on the grazing proposition, but all other things connected with 

 the national forests. At the same time, just to take a subcommit- 

 tee and send it out there to spend a week or so, looking around over 

 the grazing proposition, I do not believe that would be of any great 

 advantage. 



Mr. ToMLiNsoN. Not if you spent a week — it would be a six 

 weeks' tour ; that is what it would have to be to be of any real value. 



Mr. Lee. And they could look at the timber matter at the same 

 time? 



Mr. ToMLiNSON. Yes, sir. 



Mr. RuBET. The way that Congress has been running the last 

 8 or 10 years, we have not had any chance to go, because we have 

 had to stay right here on the job. 



Mr. ToMLiNSON. I am sure it would be very satisfactory to the 

 members of the committee if they could go out there and see the con- 

 ditions. They would then know whether they should insist on ,the 

 Forest Service getting a little miore money or not. At the pres- 

 ent time they have to take the recommendation of the department. 



Mr. TiNCHEE. A thing that appealed to me as never before was 

 when the Forestry Department was before the committee asking for 

 an appropriation. It developed that the stockmen were paying 70 

 cents for stock or 71 cents for stock for the grazing ; that is, grazing 

 of live stock, a steer, and I wondered if it was just the right thing 

 for the Government to appropriate money to keep up a pasture, so 

 to speak, on which some people, only a small portion of the meat 

 producers of the United States, could pasture their steers for a fig- 

 ure like that, when other people who were helping to feed the people 

 of the United States would not get any such rates. I wondered if 

 we could protect the cattlemen in Kansas and Texas where they do 

 not have the forest reserves, and how they could compete with a man 

 who, at the expense of the Government, could raise his cattle for 70 

 cents. You must remember that this committee at the same time that 

 we are discussing the charges for the pasture on the forest reserves 

 are spending everybody's money in appropriations to keep up the 

 forest reserves. We are asked to appropriate a lot of money ; that 



