SUKVEYS OF FOREST RESERVES. 155 



of sheep allowed on the Fish Lake range would be limited to 12,000. 

 No other sheep would be permitted to go into the Fish Lake range. 

 Each owner would be assigned that subdivision of the range on which 

 he had been accustomed to run his sheep, and would be supported and 

 defended in his exclusive right to graze there. In return it would be 

 the duty of the owner occupying Browder Eidge to see that no forest 

 fires be allowed to occur on that area, either those set carelessly and 

 intentionally by his own herder or packer, or those set by any hunter, 

 camper, or other person who might be on that territory. If forest fires 

 did occur on Browder Eidge, and the Interior Department was satisfied 

 that the owner or his employees had not made every reasonable effort to 

 prevent them or to extinguish them when once started, his permit 

 ■would be terminated forthwith, and if evidence of collusion in setting 

 the fires were shown one or all of the persons concerned would still be 

 liable to prosecution under the forest-fire laws. 



ADVANTAGES TO THE GOVERNMENT AND THE SHEEP OWNER. 



To the Groverument the chief advantage of such a system would be 

 to prevent a very large proportion of the fires that occur iu the sheep- 

 grazing area. The enormous annual loss in burned timber would at 

 once be checked. By the granting of a j)ermit for a particular area the 

 responsibility of the owner is direct and his sense of that responsibility 

 is keen. Under the old system an owner may range anywhere, with 

 any number of sheep, and the Government knows neither where he is 

 nor what he is doing. 



The advantages to the sheep owner are several and important. The 

 adage, "Everyman for himself and the devil take the hindermost," 

 ■was never more justly applicable to any busiuess than to this one of 

 grazing sheep on the public lands. It is to the interest of each owner 

 to get his sheep sheared as early in the season as possible, even before 

 the cold weather is gone, in order to get them off to the mountains 

 before his neighbor. Then he must make long drives so as to keep 

 ahead, and if his range lies on the west slope of the Cascades he will 

 drive across the summit while it is yet covered with snow, the sheep 

 passing sometimes two and even three days on the snow drifts without 

 a nibble of grass. Then he has reached his range first and is reason- 

 ably secure for the season. But the ground is still soft, the spring 

 rains may still be falling, and the sprouting grass has not yet reached 

 the development necessary to make good feed. He may be crowded off 

 during the summer, though usually it does not pay a later arrival to 

 push in on a range already occupied. Whatever happens it is usually 

 to the owner's interest to get all the grass possible without reference 

 to the next year's crop, for he is never certain that he will be able to 

 occupy the same range again. Where the competition is close the 

 difftculty of insufficient forage is increased by the haste of a herder in 

 forcing his sheep too rapidly over a grazing plot, the result being that 

 they trample more feed than they eat. So year after year each band 

 skins the range. 



Under the proposed permit system, however, the owner, knowing that 

 his range is assured, will shear his sheep at the time best suited to the 

 local climatic conditions for that purpose, and will start tor the moun- 

 tains at a reasonable time. This is a matter of especial importance to 

 those owners who live on the higher elevations of the plain, 3,000 feet 

 or more above the sea, and who, in order to be in the race with those 

 living at an elevation of 1,000 feet or less, must ordinarily, under exist- 



