Beef Producers of the Il'esi 47 



is making the cost of wintering higher and higher, and 

 also tending to deteriorate the quality of beef. Never- 

 theless, the man who has a fairly good free range and 

 plenty of land for raising hay, is making very good money. 

 His great drawback is his inability to obtain legal title to 

 the range which he uses. If there were some system 

 whereby he might homestead or purchase this land, he 

 would then cut down the amount of stock and give the 

 land a chance to develop instead of killing it out by over- 

 stocking. Under the present conditions, however, there is 

 no incentive for the stockman to protect his range, since 

 the grass which he might save for his own use would be 

 eaten up by someone else's cattle or sheep. Of course 

 the process of fencing the range has not been an unmixed 

 benefit. Range-men have been willing to pay a large 

 price for a little fenced land which they could hold in 

 reserve for emergency, or for land which would give con- 

 trol to a larger amount of outside range. This has tended 

 to establish prices for grass land far in excess of its actual 

 productive value. Then as the country develops and the 

 free range disappears, the cattle-man finds himself confined 

 to his own land with an investment so high that he cannot 

 pay the interest. Bunch-grass land is of course very 

 variable in its value, but at best it will pay interest on but 

 a nominal price. This is shown in the following statement 

 of the cost of running cows under typical conditions in 

 the Northwest, from October to October : 



Interest on $45.00 cows at 8% $3.60 



Annual loss of cows 3% (of $45) 1.35 



Cost of one ton of hay in the stack 6.00 



Cost of feeding one ton of hay 1.00 



Riding and salt ... 1.00 



Interest and depreciation on bulls 1.00 



Total without grazing $13.95 



