The peak of livestock grazing on the national forests was reached in 1918, when, under the pressure of war-time requirements and the national effort to increase production of meat, the Forest Service waived our carrying capacity limitations on a number of national forests and admitted livestock in excess of what we had regarded their normal carrying capacity. In that year, 1918, we grazed nearly 2,250,000 cattle and horses and over 8,500,000 head of sheep and goats. That was the highest point reached.

The CHAIRMAN. That represented an increase mostly in cattle and horses, then?

Colonel GREELEY. The increase was largely in cattle and horses; yes, sir. The number of sheep was also somewhat increased as compared with 1909.

By 1924 the number of cattle and horses grazed had been reduced to 1,739,000 head, or a reduction from 1918 of a little over 500,000. The number of sheep in 1924 was 6,360,000, or a reduction from 1918 of something over 2,000,000 sheep.

Of these reductions between 1918 and 1924 it is our estimate that approximately 20 per cent resulted from the action of the Forest Service in curtailing the number of animals grazed for the protection of the range itself.

In many cases we have had a difficult problem, on our hands, resulting from the fact that under the war-time emergency we consented to admitting larger numbers of stock on the national forests than we judged their carrying capacity to be. And in a number of cases we have had to gradually reduce that surplus stock back toward the normal carrying capacity of the forests. So we estimate that 20 per cent of this reduction can be directly traced to the action. of the Forest Service in bringing the number of animals down to what we believe the forests would carry.

The rest of this reduction between 1918 and 1924 has been due, mainly, to economic conditions in the livestock business-the fact that financial difficulties have forced a number of our users to drop out altogether. In a considerable number of cases we have given nonuse rights to old permittees to enable them to carry their preferences without actually using the range. That has been extended in many cases to periods of two and three years. A certain part of the reduction has been due to the closure of areas to grazing, here and there, for one reason or another, such as protection of watersheds, or in a few cases to protect young forest growth, and in a few cases for the benefit of game animals.

These figures may be of interest to the committee: Reducing sheep to cattle in order to get a common unit, in the ratio of 5 to 1, in 1909, for an average season of six months the average acreage per animal was 45 acres. In 1918, with the large increase, the average area per animal for a six months' season was 34 acres. In 1924 it had again risen to 45 acres.

The average grazing unit of 34 acres per animal in 1918 undoubtedly represented in the aggregate overgrazing, and it is probable that our present average unit of 45 acres for a six months' season represents just about safe and normal stocking. In fact, we think that better methods of range management will permit us to reduce average area per animal and thereby increase the number of animals grazed.

the

The CHAIRMAN. Does that just take into consideration the grazable area of the forests?

Colonel GREELEY. No, sir. The average area per animal of 45 acres is based on the total area of the national forests.

When the Department of Agriculture assumed charge of the national forests in 1905, Secretary Wilson defined the objects of grazing administration, in laying down a general policy for the Forest Service, in about the following way: We were instructed first to provide for the protection and conservative use of all the national forest lands adapted to grazing; secondly, to seek the best permanent good of the livestock industry through proper care and improvement of the grazing lands. The first point in the Secretary's instructions was to provide protection for the settler and home builder against unfair competition in the use of the range. The Secretary's letter of instructions set forth specifically that the Forest Service should allow use of the forage crop in the reserves as fully as proper care and protection of the forests and water supply would permit.

In carrying out that very broad and general statement of policy our first obligation was to work out an adjustment of grazing to the other uses and resources of the national forests. For example, we have over 1,200 municipalities and towns which draw their water supply from the national forests. And we have a great many

Senator SPENCER (interposing). Please explain what you mean by drawing their water supply from the national forests.

Colonel GREELEY. I mean that the municipal watersheds are in the national forests and under our protection.

Senator SPENCER. But there is no accumulation of water there: I mean by that, no artificial accumulation?

Colonel GREELEY. Except as in some cases where they install their own dams or conduits. But the watershed is in the national forest and under our protection. And there are a great many other watersheds that supply irrigation districts with water. And where there is danger that the grazing of livestock would seriously injure the water supply necessary for municipal use, or for irrigation, particularly where grazing would cause excessive erosion and thus injure the sources of supply, it has been necessary either to exclude grazing altogether or to curtail it or to exclude the grazing of certain classes of animals, particularly of sheep.

On a number of national forests, particularly in the Southwest, the reduction of grazing has been found necessary to permit young forest growth to be established. In the great bulk of our timbered areas on the national forests reasonably regulated grazing does no damage, and, in fact, is even a positive benefit because it reduces the amount of inflammable material on the ground, and thus renders the forests safer from fire.

But on some areas, like the Coconino Plateau in Arizona, where reproduction of forests at best is difficult to secure, we have found by experience that unless grazing is very carefully handled there is direct and serious injury to young forest growth. And in cases of that nature we have had to make reasonable adjustments in the use of the forests for grazing for the protection of these other resources. There are approximately 3,000,000 acres in the national forests where grazing has been eliminated or reduced for the benefit of wild game. The best example of that is the exclusion of grazing on

certain areas in the national forests of the Yellowstone region where we have a problem of providing range for the large herds of elk, and in meeting that problem adjustments have been made in grazing so as to reserve certain areas for the ranging of elk.

Senator SPENCER. As to the wild life of the forests which you take into account in making these adjustments, does that refer to wild life that is dangerous to cattle?

Colonel GREELEY. No, sir. I refer to valuable game animals, like elk and deer and

Senator SPENCER (interposing). Does the grazing of cattle interfere with game animals in the forests?

Colonel GREELEY. In some places. In the great majority of instances we regard the grazing of livestock as not interfering with or injuring the wild life. They use different forage plants; they use different types of country, and there is no serious interference.

But in some instances, like the ranges used by the elk herds, and like the range used by the Kaibab deer herds in northern Arizona, there is positive interference, and you must either exclude the one or the other.

Senator CAMERON. That is caused by shortage of grass on the pasture.

Colonel GREELEY. It is primarily the result of overgrazing, a combination of grazing by game and by domestic livestock. So that it has been our policy to make adjustments, reasonable adjustments I will say, where it was felt that the preservation of the wild life. was so important that some reduction in the grazing of domestic livestock should be made for its benefit. But, as these figures indicate, that has applied only to a very small acreage of our grazing lands.

Senator SPENCER. Colonel Greeley, where you have domestic animals and wild animals grazing in the same territory, which drives out the other?

Colonel GREELEY. Domestic animals in large numbers will frequently drive out the wild life. It is more a matter, however, of overgrazing which affects both classes.

At a few points some restrictions have been placed upon grazing for the protection of camping grounds or other areas used by recreation seekers. That is a problem that is growing in its difficulties and importance, because there is very large use of the national forests for recreational purposes.

There again we have tried to do the sensible thing by cutting down the grazing of domestic animals at a few points where it is necessary to reserve camping grounds for tourists, or little pastures where tourists could accommodate their saddle and pack horses.

I just mention such matters, gentlemen of the committee, because I know that many of these questions will come up before your committee in the course of your investigations, and I want to get my statement on them before you.

We have had to take all these things into account and adjust grazing to other resources and other uses of the national forests with such common sense and all-around fairness as we could muster. But in these adjustments it has been the policy of the Forest Service from the outset to recognize grazing as a major resource and a major form of use of the national forests, to be provided for under

the most favorable conditions possible to the stockmen and with just as much permanency and security for the future as possible.

In this matter of permanency and security we have not been able to go as far as many of the stockmen would desire. The Department of Agriculture and the Federal courts have never recognized grazing as a property right vested in the individuals who have used these ranges for many years. The idea has often been put forward by stockmen that because of their extended use of many of these ranges with the tacit consent of the Government, running back over many years before the national forests were created, that they had acquired what should be regarded as a vested right or a property right, analogous to the rights acquired to the use of water under the laws of the most of the Western States. The viewpoint of the department has been that grazing is a licensed use, or privilege if you want to call it that, which we are obligated to provide for and maintain on as stable a basis as we can, but that it can not be regarded as a property right.

The reasons for this are, in the first place, that grazing by any individual user must be controlled or adjusted as becomes necessary for the protection of the range itself. And if the permanency of the range requires that its use by a particular stockman be curtailed, that course must be followed-because permanency of the resources is after all the most important consideration.

Then again, in administering the national forests for the purposes defined by law, which are, specifically, the production of timber and the protection of watersheds, it may become necessary to curtail grazing or to eliminate grazing in certain areas for the benefit of these other resources. And obviously if grazing became a property right it would not be possible to adjust the grazing use where adjustments might be necessary in order to take care of timber and

water resources.

The CHAIRMAN. In the matter of adjustment as to camp sites and certain reserves from grazing that are necessary for recreational purposes, have these in your judgment been fairly well taken care of, are they fairly well provided for, or do you believe that many adjustments are yet to be made?

Colonel GREELEY. I think they are well provided for at the present time, Senator Stanfield; that while in the future we will have to make minor adjustments here and there, yet in the sum total they will not represent any large curtailment of grazing. We will undoubtedly here and there have to make some minor adjustments for the protection of game or for the preservation of camping sites, yet in the aggregate they will not represent any serious curtailment of the grazing use.

The CHAIRMAN. Then as to the preservation of timber, the areas in the various nonforest and forest lands are fairly well determined,

too.

Colonel GREELEY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And where it might be necessary to have a regulation apply to one area for the purpose of carrying on reforestation or conservation of forests, it would not apply to nonforest areas.

Colonel GREELEY. No, sir. In order to illustrate that specifically let us take the situation in northern Arizona, which is the most serious in that respect: Our general program there is that when

in the development of timber utilization it becomes necessary to plan for cutting a certain tract, we ought to exclude grazing, or at least sheep grazing, from that area for a few years before the timber is cut so as to let the young growth get seeded. Grazing should also be excluded or reduced after the timber is cut until this young growth will reach a point where it will not be seriously damaged. After that has been done the land can be thrown open again to grazing.

So, what we will ultimately reach there, in my judgment, will be a revolving or rotating system, under which we protect the individual areas from grazing during the period necessary to get the young growth of timber established. After that has been done grazing can again be admitted.

In the aggregate that should not represent any very large exclusion of grazing at any one time. In many of our timbered areas we do not need to do even that, because experience has shown that grazing does little or no damage, particularly after the country is properly stocked with young trees. We can go ahead and cut the timber without excluding grazing.

Those adjustments, while I feel they must be inade where necessary for the benefit of other resources, are not in the aggregate going to require any wholesale or large exclusion of grazing. In my judgment, we can continue right along to graze on the national forests at least our present numbers of livestock, and the adjustments will be local ones, here and there, without affecting the use in the aggregate. Then another reason why the Department of Agriculture has never been able to recognize the vested-right viewpoint toward grazing has been that in our judgment the ranges in the national forests should be available for the most equitable and most desirable distribution among the different applicants or users in accordance with the public interest, and particularly in accordance with the best economic development of the region in which the forest is situated. That might require, as it has required in a good many cases, reducing the herds of the larger users to make room for new settlers or others who may need range to develop an agricultural community. It has been our viewpoint that the Government must be free to make such adjustments in the distribution of range as the actual conditions in a given locality or at a given time may call for, and hence that no vested rights in grazing can be recognized in any individual.

In lieu of a vested right which a good many stockmen have claimed or have asked for, the department has attempted to stabilize the use of the national forest ranges by a system of preferences, preference being recognized as attaching to a stock owner who has been established in a locality and has ultilized the national forest range for a considerable number of years. These preferences are transferable from one stockman to another. They usually become established as the result of three years of continuous use of any range, if that is accompanied by the ownership of ranch property such as make the whole livestock enterprise a properly organized one.

The preference is not a vested right, but is a guaranty to each of our users that as long as he remains in the livestock business and has the ranch or improvements necessary to maintain a livestock business he will be assured the use of national forest range as long as there is any national forest range available to be used.