52 BULLETIN 1001, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
The demand for free farming land is so great that if this land could 
have been cultivated successfully it would have been taken long 
ago. The entryman has been kept out by adverse physical conditions, 
mostly climatic, that have determined the possible use of the land. 
If it be assumed that the land of a given region, formerly occupied 
by stockmen, has all been taken by settlers who believe that they 
can farm it, and that the land is really arid grazing land, what 
actually happens in such a region ? It is a foregone conclusion that 
arid grazing land will ultimately be used as grazing land, no matter 
what mistakes men may. make in their attempts to classify it. .The 
cycle from stock raising to stock raising again generally pursues 
somewhat the following course : 
The settlers take up the land until the occupying stockman, being 
deprived of his range feed, is forced to sell his stock and other prop- 
erty, usually at considerable loss. The settlers use up their money 
making necessary improvements, buying equipment, and paying 
living expenses, in anticipation of a crop. If the crops fail, they are 
forced to borrow money and give the money lender a mortgage on the 
land and equipment. The crops fail a second time and the settlers 
must give up their land and equipment to pay their indebtedness. 
They then usually leave, heaping curses on a region that they have 
themselves helped to put out of use. They have lost all their original 
investment, all the borrowed money, two or more seasons' work, and 
they and their families have endured many hardships, merely because 
they were mistaken in the land classification. The land is left in 
the hands of the money lender and it must lie idle until he can sell 
it or lease it. If a sufficient area, lying in a compact body and 
properly watered, can be bought at a price which the business will 
warrant, some stockman may be willing to buy the land and start 
stock raising again. Several more steps may be introduced into the 
cycle, usually with a loss at each transfer, and .a prolongation of the 
period of disuse. 
Nothing has been gained by this cycle of changes except the legal 
control of an area of sufficient size to carry a productive stock busi- 
ness, and this end is not attained unless all the land in the original 
area is patented by the settlers and all of the land so taken may be 
purchased at a reasonable price. It should be possible to reach such 
a desired end in a much more straightforward way, without the losses 
that result from this indirect method. 
A cycle of changes more or less similar to that described has been 
going on for years in the semiarid region as the result of the policy 
of gradually increasing the maximum size of the homestead area 
that may be taken by an entryman. 
It thus becomes clear that a policy of gradually increasing the size 
of the homestead not only tends to destroy a legitimate business 
