20 Western Live-stock Management 



"free" range, there is no way to keep the cattle off until 

 the seed matures and the ranges must constantly de- 

 teriorate. Furthermore, these 290,000,000 acres of un- 

 appropriated lands contribute no taxes to the support of 

 either county, state, or national government, but are sup- 

 plied with schools and roads from taxes on other land 

 and property. In many western counties, 75 per cent 

 or more of the land is unappropriated and the taxes on 

 the remaining 25 per cent are necessarily very heavy. 

 The stockmen themselves are helpless in the matter and 

 are in no way responsible for these disastrous results. 

 On the contrary, the blame is due to the laws which force 

 this situation on the West, and these laws are in turn due 

 to Congress which is finally responsible to the people 

 of the United States — in other words, you and me. 

 The vast bulk of our population live in the cities and in 

 the eastern parts of the United States, where land values 

 are high and where a thousand or two thousand acres of 

 land is a princely fortune. They cannot realize that a 

 thousand acres of this range will not in most cases sup- 

 port a family and they feel that when the federal gov- 

 ernment gives the homesteaders 160 or 320 acres, the gov- 

 ernment is already being grafted out of "good farms." 

 Then to add to this feeling, there has been the great agita- 

 tion for intensified farming, and the ten-acre farm has 

 been praised in song and story until the public was ready 

 to believe that ten acres anj'^\'here would support a 

 family if "farmed right." 



Within the last year or two, the pendulum of public 

 opinion has started in the other direction and it is pos- 

 sible that we may shortly be able to get a careful and un- 

 biased judgment on the matter. The remedy must be 

 a legal one and must make it possible for the stockmen 



