ANIMAL UNITS (MILLIONS) 
O 
I910 I9I5 
I920 I925 
1930 
YEARS 
1935 I940 1945 1950 
Ficure 19.—Cattle (dairy cows excluded) and stock sheep in 11 Western States, expressed in animal units (1 unit =1 cow 
or 5 sheep), 1910-47. 
should be halted through elimination of over- 
grazing and other unsound practices. ‘This is 
difficult because of the strong economic pressures 
to put more animals on a range than it will sup- 
port. Secondly, millions of acres of badly depleted 
forest range that are producing only meager for- 
age should be rehabilitated. In a larger sense 
grazing should be harmonized more effectively with 
other forest uses; and use of range and croplands 
should be better integrated for more efficient utili- 
zation of available forage. 
Basically, this means that a better job of range 
management needs to be done on both public and 
private forest lands. More attention should be 
given to conservative grazing use that will build 
up and maintain the forage. This would include 
better seasonal use, more efficient control and dis- 
tribution of livestock, adjustments in kinds and 
classes of animals using the range, and improved 
practices such as deferred and rotation grazing for 
speedier range recovery. It would call for large 
investments in water developments, fences, and 
other range improvements. But research has clear- 
ly shown that a reduction of livestock numbers 
and better management on overgrazed range will 
result'in greater output of meat and larger calf 
crops because of better conditions for the animals 
that remain. 
operations. 
On the western national forests, progress in 
range improvement and adjusting livestock num- 
bers to grazing capacity has been made since World 
War I. Range reseeding has been undertaken on 
a commercial scale in recent years. Yet about half 
of the range allotments still need adjustments, 
ranging from minor changes in management up to 
50 percent reduction in numbers or even, in a few 
cases, total exclusion. In many instances small 
reductions made from time to time were insufficient 
to offset the range deterioration. And in some lo- 
calities the reduction in livestock use has been 
partly or wholly offset by increases in big game. 
Other Federal forest ranges in the West are in 
a similar although generally less satisfactory status. 
This usually means more profitable 
Constructive efforts to correct the severe over- © 
grazing on public domain lands date mainly trom 
1935, when large areas in the West, including some 
17 million acres of forest range, were placed under 
administration as grazing districts. Serious over- 
grazing prevails on many unreserved public do- 
main lands, which are leased for grazing with few 
if any restrictions as to use. Some of these are 
forest range. On Indian lands, which include 12 
million acres of forest range, there has been prog- 
Te Miscellaneous Publication 668, U. S. Department of Agriculture 
