156 SURVEYS OF FOREST RESERVES. 



ing conditions, leave their home range two weeks too early, at a time 

 when it still bears a profusion of fresh nutritious grass. Reaching the 

 grazing areas in the mountains when the grass has grown to a fair degree 

 of maturity, a larger amount of better forage awaits the herder, and 

 with a definite knowledge that he will use the same area in the follow- 

 ing year he so handles his sheep as not to permanently injure the grass. 

 Indeed, he may find it profitable to improve it by seeding with good 

 varieties of clover and grass. One owner stated that several years ago 

 he had sowed one summer $20 worth of clover and grass seed, but that 

 never having been able to secure the same range again he got no bene- 

 fit from his expenditure, and had discontinued all efforts in that direc- 

 tion. With an assured title for a period of years an owner can also put 

 up substantial shelters for his men and their provisions. A further 

 advantage of great importance to sheep owners is the circumstance 

 that, lying within a forest reserve, the grazing lands are not subject' to 

 homestead entry, and no one, therefore, by securing a title to the land 

 can prevent its use as a sheep range. By a judicious use of the privi- 

 lege granted under the proposed system the grazing lands of the reserve 

 become a perpetual sheep range. To both the State itself and to the 

 general body of sheep owners the proposed system is an advantage from 

 the evident fact that if the forest grazing privilege is valuable at all it 

 is most valuable when the amount of forage it furnishes is maintained 

 at its highest limit of continued production, as would be the case under 

 the proposed system, instead of being maintained at its lowest limit of 

 production, as would finally be the case under the present system. 



There is a popular but erroneous idea that the responsibility for the 

 present system of grazing in eastern Oregon rests with the sheep 

 owners. It is found, however, on conversation with a large number of 

 them, that they are opposed to the present method and would welcome 

 a change in Government policy which would give them a financial inter- 

 est in the maintenance of good pasturage. If they could secure for a 

 reasonable period of years a title to the grazing product, they believe 

 it would be one of the greatest benefits possible to the industry. 



OBJECTIONS TO THK PROPOSED SYSTEM. 



In discussing the proposed plan with stock men I found, somewhat 

 unexpectedly, that all those to whom 1 had the opportunity of explain- 

 ing it fully without exce|)tion approved it, but often with the proviso, 

 " If it could be carried out." Their primary doubt was that though a 

 majority of the owners would gladly adopt the system there would 

 always be a few who would refuse to agree to any regulations or would 

 be unscrupulous enough to transgress them when they found it to their 

 own interest to do so. It appears that the eminent desirability of 

 adopting some scheme of parceling out the range had long been recog- 

 nized and in an informal way had been attempted in various localities, 

 but that invariably some unscrupulous owner, by crowding in upon 

 another's range, had broken up the system. Upon being reminded that 

 a new set of laws had been enacted under which the Interior Depart- 

 ment had full authority to make regulations covering the land within 

 the forest reserves and full power to enforce them, and that while the 

 Government undoubtedly wished to handle the subject with the velvet 

 hand of equity there lay beneath it the iron claw of stern authority, 

 they readily appreciated that recalcitrant owners would not be as seri- 

 ous an obstacle to the Interior Department as they had been to their 

 own unauthorized system. 



