Beef Producers of the West 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 
anominal 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% we ee Gd) a ap Je? Se Sb. $3.60 
Annual loss of cows 3% (of $45) . . . . . at oh 1.35 
Cost of one ton of hay in the stack . . .... . 6.00 
Cost of feeding one tonofhay. . ...... . 1.00 
Riding and salt . . . . sm erate eae 1.00 
Interest and depreciation on ‘pulls | ide a! ie) ae 1.00 
Total without grazing . . . .. . . . ©) «613.95 
