58 EVILS OF THE SYSTEM. 



especially in Germany, France and Switzerland, give a large control 

 to the Forest Departments over both communal and private forest 

 lands. In some cases not a tree can be cut without a government 

 permit. In the United States, the federal public forests on moun- 

 tain ranges, and, therefore, of the highest importance to the character 

 of water delivery from them, are all in or west of the Rocky mountains. 

 In the irrigated portion of California the forests are confined to the 

 mountains. 



In all these public forests, as on all the public lands, there has 

 been more or less common use of the pasturage. This forest pasture 

 is scant in California. The only districts which have any pasture of 

 importance in our forests are those upon the Alpine meadows of the 

 high Sierra. These high Alpine districts are variable in their contents 

 of meadows. They are calculated to carry an average of five thousand 

 head of sheep, or eight hundred to nine hundred head of cattle or 

 horses to a surveyed township. In a general way, we can say that 

 two acres of this Alpine district will carry a sheep for three months, 

 and about ten acres will carry a horse or steer. 



Our American experience has been short in the common use of 

 public forests. As far as it has gone, it has duplicated that of South- 

 ern Europe. Everywhere the forests are injured by it. Everywhere 

 the pasturage itself is injured both by premature and by excessive 

 use. 



We have had the same result as to the fairness and equality of 

 use as in European communal forests. In our experience, large stock 

 or sheep owners generally parcel these forest pastures out by agree- 

 ment, and enforce these agreements by armed men. New men, large or 

 small, are trespassers. Their animals are in constant danger, and they 

 often pay the penalty of life in attempts to obtain a share of the 

 common pasturage. When small men come in, it is a question of life 

 and death with them. 



While I was in the Sierra Nevadas last year, 1898, there were 

 three shooting affrays amongst rival stockmen within ten days, all 

 in the Yosemite National Park — in which none of them had any right 

 whatever. When powerful interests meet, the result is little short 

 of open war. In Wyoming, a few years ago, the stockmen's war to hold 

 common lands against settlers passed beyond the control of the State 

 authorities and necessitated the sending of Federal troops to end the 

 trouble. The National Parks in our forests have required details of the 

 army to keep the pasture-seekers from irreparable injury to them. 



