236 



DRY FARMING CONGRESS 



THE STOCKMAN'S HOMESTEAD AND GRAZING RANGE ADMIN- 

 ISTRATION IN THE WEST. 

 * (R. H. Forbes.) 



The industrial condition which governs throughout more than 400,000,- 

 000 acres of western public grazing lands has been described many times 

 recently in articles discussing the question of the proper disposal of these 

 lands. In general, the situation is everywhere the same — temporary oc- 

 cupation without ownership or legal possessory rights, by stockmen, of 

 that public domain whose purpose is to provide room and opportunity as 

 long and as fully as possible for the nation's rapidly expanding population. 



Mindful of such an important utility for our public lands, any damage 

 to this national asset must be considered, virtually, as a sacrifice of na- 

 tional territory, inasmuch as its impairment means the loss of so much 

 foothold and working room for prospective settlers. Yet exactly this has 

 been the result of the misfit application of existing land laws to western 

 conditions. These laws, virtually inoperative in a grazing country, have 

 necessarily been supplemented by the unwritten law of the range, framed 

 and enforced by those strong enough to take and hold possession for a 

 brief term of years. 



Effects of Overgrazing. 



The result of such occupation is, usually, that excessive numbers of 

 animals are put upon this free pasture, the profits are run up as quickly 

 as possible while yet the range remains free and then, when the grass is 

 gone, when the plains and hillsides are converted into gullied barrens, and 

 oftentimes, when the profits of the first years are cancelled by the losses 

 of later ones, the nation's ruined estate is abandoned to the tender mercies 

 of the next and more ruthless occupant who may still find something con- 

 vertible thereon. 



The effect of this unregulated and destructive tenure varies greatly 

 with those conditions of soil, topography, rainfall, heat and frost which 

 affect the endurance of a grazing country. More favored districts in 

 more northerly, humid, or elevated situations still retain an important frac- 

 tion of their primeval value; but in portions of the southwest, where the 

 soils are sandy and easily washed, where the rainfall is light and often 

 untimely, where the hot dry climate causes enormous evaporation, and 

 where, consequently, the effects of unregulated grazing are most destruct- 

 ive, many great areas of formerly grassy country may be safely stated 

 to be capable of supporting not one-tenth of the stock that once ranged 

 there. 



Approximate Losses. 



It may be assumed, probably without exaggerating the loss, that the 

 public grazing ranges of the west now average not more than half of 

 their original value — lands, too, which can never be irrigated and for 



