The West 21 
to adopt better methods of range management. In a 
general way there are three possible methods of pro- 
cedure. First, to sell the land to the highest bidder; 
second, to lease it to the stockmen, either as a direct lease 
of certain areas or by grazing under permit as is now 
the case in the National Forests; third, to permit the 
homesteading of the land in quantities sufficiently large 
to support a family and to induce settlers actually to take 
up the land. The stockmen would prefer one of the first 
two and doubtless from the general good of the country, 
one or the other of these methods would be best. The 
third, however, or some modification of it, is apparently 
most likely to get through Congress, since it would do 
most to put the land into the hands of the man with 
nomoney. The stockmen now on the ground have almost 
all used their homestead rights. The land would, there- 
fore, have to be taken up by new persons. The western 
homesteaders do not have and cannot get the money to 
stock up these ranges; they are by training and natural 
ability not adapted to the range stock business; and the 
minute a patent for the land would be obtained, it would 
be on the market with the stockmen as possible pur- 
chasers. The stockmen would eventually get it but the 
buying and selling would be a cut-throat game on both 
sides. The proper use of this land often depends so much 
on the ownership or control of adjoining lands that many 
factors other than the actual productive value of the land 
itself would enter into the deal, sometimes to the ad- 
vantage of the stockman and just as often to the advan- 
tage of the homesteader. In the long run, things would 
probably work out all right but the stock business would 
be much demoralized for a period of several years. If such 
a homestead system be adopted, the homesteads must be 
