TENURE AND USE OE ARID GRAZING LANDS, 
51 
a crop would be merely an incident in his business and would mean 
only a smaller total income than usual. A partial failure of a grain 
crop is not proportionally so great a loss to the stockman, because 
if he gets as much forage off the plowed land as it would have pro- 
duced in native grass he has lost nothing but the work and the cost 
of the seed; but the failure of crops for several years spells absolute 
disaster to the crop farmer. That any and all known cultivated 
crops will fail on such areas a certain number of seasons in a period 
of years has been demonstrated time and time again and the gener- 
alization can be accepted as proved. 
It has been urged that if the existing homestead laws be allowed 
to operate for a sufficiently long time, the lands will pass into private 
ownership, and the necessary adjustments in the sizes of holdings 
can then be made by the owners. Such a contention is true only 
when all the lands are privately owned. This condition is reached 
only after long delay or not at all, because much of the land is so 
poor that no one wants it. Even small scattered areas of such public 
land to a very large degree prevent the fencing of the remainder. 
The annual reports of the Commissioner of the General Land Office 
show that while some land is being homesteaded a part of it is being 
left in all of the States of the arid grazing region, ranging in amount 
from a small part in the State of Washington to more than three- 
fourths in Nevada. The rate at which the lands have been taken in 
these Western States differs with the State and fluctuates with the 
years, but shows a general tendency to decrease in all of them. The 
fluctuations do not seem to be in any way correlated with the changes 
in land legislation. The one important fact that is deducible from 
the data is that much of the land is being left as public domain. 
Table 7 shows the total acreage entered each year since 1910 in 
each of the 11 Western States. The area still open for entry in 
1920 and the total area of each State are also given for comparison. 
Table 7. — Total entries 1 of public lands (all classes) for the 11 Western States 1910- 
19°20, inclusive. 
[Millions of acres.] 
Year. 
1910 
1911 
1912 
1913 
1914 
1915 
1916 
1917 
1918 
1919 
1920 
Area 
stiU 
avail- 
able 
1920.' 
Size 
of 
State. 
0.5 
1.2 
3.8 
1.7 
6.5 
.2 
1.9 
1.0 
.5 
.5 
1.4 
0.5 
1.1 
2.1 
1.1 
4.3 
.3 
1.4 
.7 
.5 
.4 
1.2 
0.7 
.9 
1.2 
.8 
3.6 
.3 
1.1 
.7 
.5 
.3 
.5 
0.8 
.9 
1.3 
1.0 
3.7 
.2 
2.3 
.6 
.2 
.3 
.7 
0.8 
.9 
1.3 
.9 
5.3 
.2 
1.9 
.8 
.2 
.3 
.9 
0.3 
1.0 
2.5 
1.1 
4.1 
.3 
3.3 
.7 
.4 
.3 
.8 
1.9 
.6 
2.9 
1.1 
3.7 
.2 
2.8 
.6 
.3 
.2 
1.4 
1.4 
.7 
1.9 
.8 
3.8 
.1 
1.9 
.4 
.3 
.3 
l.fi 
1.2 
.3 
1.1 
.6 
2.4 
.1 
1.0 
.3 
.2 
.1 
1.2 
0.5 
.5 
1.6 
.7 
1.6 
.3 
2.2 
.4 
.2 
.1 
2.3 
1.8 
.9 
1.8 
.9 
2.2 
.2 
1.5 
1.0 
.4 
.2 
3.9 
18.3 
19.6 
8.9 
8.8 
6.0 
54.2 
18.4 
14.0 
30.0 
1.1 
19.7 
72.9 
California 
101.3 
66.5 
Idaho 
Montana 
Nevada 
56.7 
94.1 
70.8 
78.5 
Oregon 
Utah 
61.9 
54.4 
Washington 
44.2 
62.7 
1 Entry is the term used for all sorts of applications for public land that have been allowed by the officials 
of the land office. The area- ultimately patented is usually considerably less than the area originally 
entered. 
