DRY FARMING CONGRESS. 



237 



which there is no possible use but as grazing territory. Differently stated, 

 this means that the United States, for want of proper laws to govern its 

 public domain, has suffered a loss equal in effective value to, say, 200,000,- 

 000 acres of grazing lands — an area greater than the state of Texas or 

 equal to a strip of territory 230 miles wide extending from the Rio Grande 

 to the Canadian boundary. It is evident that only the wreckage of west- 

 ern grazing values remains to be legislated for and that the problems of 

 the now depleted range are largely those of reconstruction for a failing 

 country, occupied by more or less conflicting interests — by cattle, sheep, 

 and goats, by large companies and by small individuals. 



There are few remaining to defend the old order of "free grass for 

 all;" for this regime, satisfactory enough when there was grass for all 

 has, with the failure of the ranges, demonstrated its own ruinousness. 



The Nature of the Problem. 



The problem confronting range interests at this time is to devise land 

 laws which shall enable a maximum population to support itself in a pas- 

 toral country; and to make these laws so flexible as to apply to all grades, 

 both best and poorest, of grazing lands, harmonize all kinds of stock in- 

 terests thereon, and provide for the often unexpected development, 

 through irrigation, of agricultural lands within formerly purely grazing 

 districts. 



The existing conditions are those of a country reduced by overgrazing 

 and bad management to a fraction of its possible value, and requiring to 

 be fenced, reseeded, repaired and protected in order to even partly restore 

 that value. 



Unsatisfactory Remedies Proposed. 



Practically the only proposals thus far made to' remedy existing condi- 

 tions are to lease the public lands in blocks at stated rents, or to issue per- 

 mits to individuals to run stated numbers of animals upon specified por- 

 tions of the public range. 



The unsatisfactory nature of these proposals is attested, in part, by 

 their repeated rejection by one or another faction of those concerned, and 

 for reasons quite evident when the merits of the measures are considered. 

 Lease or fence laws permitting the control of large bodies of land on the 

 basis of competitive bids are usually favored hy the wealthier and better 

 tablished stock raisers who would be at an advantage under such laws, 

 and are earnestly opposed by the small men who would be exterminated 

 through their operation. Horizontal lease laws have been proposed pro- 

 viding for the leasing of all grazing lands at the same rate per acre of 

 rental. When it is considered that different grazing districts may easily 

 require all the way from 3 to 60 acres to support a single cow, the unjust 

 discrimination against the more desert ranges, of a horizontal rate-per- 

 acre lease law is too evident to require discussion. 



The leasing idea, nevertheless, has a good foundation in the fact that 

 it recognizes that in order to place the grazing industries on a stable basis. 



