26 BULLETIX 1001, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Ordinarily the land carrying the water is owned by the user, though 
he may lease it from a railroad company, from the State, an Indian 
reservation, or other owner. Ownership has sometimes been obtained 
by homesteading, sometimes by placing lieu land scrip on it. Some- 
times the water is covered by a patented mining claim, or, if it is on 
unsurveyed land, rights may be acquired by a settlement made by 
a qualified homesteader for the purpose of subsequently making 
homestead entry after the lands are surveyed, and such rights can 
be maintained only by substantially continuous occupation and the 
right to all improvements which he may make or purchase from a 
former occupant. Sometimes the water is on a mining claim that is 
not patented, but tenure of the claim is maintained by doing the 
ordinary assessment work each year. 13 
To-day the open range is held on a tacit agreement among stock- 
men that the stock water will be used in common, each man develop- 
ing enough for the number of animals he puts on the range. The 
feed also must be used in common, since each ranch is bounded only 
by the imaginary line passing halfway between its watering places 
and those of the nearest neighbors all around it. Thus feed and 
water, salt and bulls, must be used in common, and individual control of 
their businesses is not possible for most of the stockmen of the region. 
Notwithstanding the undesirable and irritating conditions that 
surround the industry, the old policy of a eat out the range and move 
on" has been discarded forever. The men who now carry on the 
industry are as permanently located as men in other kinds of business 
and are anxious to develop it as rapidly as possible if the opportunity 
is given them. That opportunity can be given only by proper land 
legislation. 
As an indication of what men will do to get control of the ranges 
they use, some data as to the use-control of the lands inside the 
Atlantic and Pacific land-grant area are presented. 
In the study of .grazing lands previously referred to, some data were obtained rela- 
tive to the actual control of the lands of the region examined. 14 The lands originally 
granted to the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Co. have been sold or leased to many- 
companies and individuals. The existing use-control of the region is very largely 
determined by the present legal tenure of these lands, though the disposition of the 
State lands of the area is also an important factor. Stockmen have bought or leased 
large areas of this land in the hope of controlling as nearly as may be all the land they 
use. A few of the holdings are completely consolidated, under one form of tenure or 
another, and are partly or all fenced. 
The sizes of the range units shown in Table 4 are approximately the amounts of 
land that individual stockmen use (occasionally in common with others who have 
little or no equities) by virtue of having bought or leased most or all of the lands of 
their ranges that could be so obtained. The proportion of each range so held varies 
from more than half to all of it. 
is The minimum amount of development work on the claim required by law to maintain possession. 
u This information was obtained through the courtesy of the officials of the Santa Fe Railroad Co., St. 
Louis & San Francisco Railroad Co.. Aztec Land and Cattle Co., and numerous individuals. 
