the outside of it, put a pasture in, put in lots of corrals, maybe, and maybe he put on a lot of improvements, and maybe not so much. But whatever he does put on there it would be nothing uncommon for him to put on many thousands of dollars. On one range that we had up here on the reservation I think we had 100 miles of fence, which I think cost us not less than $250 a mile. We had corrals, watering troughs, pipes all improvements. Unless it has been changed here lately, my neighbor or anybody could come in and bid 25 cents more than I bid and get all the benefit of these improvements, which would make his bid maybe 35 cents on a dollaractually what mine had been, including my improvements.

Mr. BOWDEN. Unless you had a long-term lease there would be no encouragement to improve the range, would there?

Mr. MARLEY. Absolutely not. But, on the other hand, we will say you get a two or three year lease; you have a part of the country that is rough and brushy; you want to put in some traps, and you will be forced to put them in; even for a short time you have to put them in, you know, no matter what the size of it is; but you put them in just so they will last for a while; that is, you can not do it good, you see; and if you do get it for the next lease, then you have to come back and fix them up and go on, which makes it more expensive for a permittee; and a long-term lease absolutely, it looks to me, would be more businesslike for everyone, the Government and the permittee, too.

Mr. BOWDEN. There is no reason, is there, that you can see, why the Government should not be able to lease this land, the same as a railroad would lease its land, and why there should be any more administration or regulation than what exists between a railroad

lessor and a lessee?

Mr. MARLEY. There is not a particle that I can see. There is no

reason.

Mr. BOWDEN. And any disputes that come up relative to an infraction of the lease, settle them in a court?

Mr. MARLEY. Absolutely.

Mr. had such a leasing system as that, would you recommend it in lieu of the present condition on the

public domain?

Mr. MARLEY. I absolutely would.

Mr. BOWDEN. If the Government adopted a per acre basis on a long-term lease, with the privilege of assignment, you would have a situation that would be beneficial both to the Government and to the lessee, would you not?

Mr. MARLEY. Certainly would.

Mr. BOWDEN. That would encourage improvements by the lessee? Mr. MARLEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. BOWDEN. And that would benefit the Government in its

range?

Mr. MARLEY. Absolutely it would; absolutely would. There is one of the troubles we have now. I have never had much of this trouble come up to me, but I have known of people. The forest reserve officials will say to you, "Now, you have too many cattle. You cut them down and we will protect you and let them grow back, or let your range come up." That man will take off half of his cattle and the range will sprout up and be pretty good, you know.

And then they will say, "You put some more back on, or we are going to give a part of your allotment to your neighbor." I have seen that thing. That is not business. There is nothing to it. And that has occurred also where a man has said, "I would like to sell half of my cattle and cut my permit down half. My range is pretty badly overstocked. I want to retain my range and let it get better, but I don't want to pay this full permit on the full number. I am going to sell half of them, but I want to hold my range. That will make the range better. That is what you people preach. If you will see that I hold it and don't give it to somebody else, I will sell these cattle." He does sell them, and then they turn around and give his range to some one else. There have been cases of that kind, and that is pretty hard sledding, the way we have to do business here. In my experience on the forest reserve, also on the Indian reservation, we have a lot of things there. We have to deal with people who have full authority but have no ability and don't know what they are doing in their line. It makes it pretty hard.

Mr. BOWDEN. You find that condition true on Indian reservations. do you not?

Mr. MARLEY. I have seen ranges taken for Government use that it was absolutely not necessary to take. I have seen ranges cut in two that was caused by personal feeling on the part of the forest officer or the Government agent. He just got ready to ride them, and he got on and rode. It makes it pretty hard. There isn't much of it, though, but then there is some of it.

Mr. BOWDEN. To your knowledge, is there much friction between the lessees of State lands and the State government?

Mr. MARLEY. To my knowledge, there is practically none. I don't know of any.

Mr. BOWDEN. You could have the same condition existing on the public domain?

Mr. MARLEY. We could have, but we don't have.

Mr. BOWDEN. Wouldn't it be feasible in large part to put the same conditions in effect on forest reserves?

Mr. MARLEY. You mean the condition that is on the State land and on the public domain?

Mr. BOWDEN. Yes; the conditions on the State lands that are under lease.

Mr. MARLEY. Well, I think it would, and on a large part of the forest I think it would, if we could get the lowest price right now. The idea is if a man has so many cattle and such a sized tract that he can get it arranged so that the sales that he has, or the increase in his cattle, will pay the bill, he will be all right. If we can only get so we can make a living, which hardly anybody at the present time is. it would be much better, I think, on a large part of the forest.

Mr. BOWDEN. Would you recommend the turning over to the State the remaining public domain, provided there was no restriction en alienation, the amount of land which could be alienated, or restriction on the leasing price?

Mr. MARLEY. Well, I have done very little-I will tell you, personally, I have leased very little land, either from the Government or from the State, and it is pretty hard for me to say. I would have to look into that a little bit before I would want to say.

Mr. BOWDEN. Now, in the event that these public lands, unreserved, are leased, would you recommend that the Department of Agriculture or the Department of the Interior handle the leasing of them?

Mr. MARLEY. I don't know as I would want to say about that, because I would be just saying one or the other and I don't know. I am not familiar enough with the management of the Department of the Interior or the Department of Agriculture. I don't exactly know which I would recommend.

Mr. BOWDEN. Except for certain areas of the forest in Arizona, where saw timber grows, there is no need of all these regulations? Mr. MARLEY. Not the least; there is only in Arizona a very small area where there is marketable timber.

Mr. BOWDEN. The great bulk of the forest here could be put into grazing areas, and leased for grazing purposes, under long-term leases.

Mr. MARLEY. Absolutely. That would be the thing to do, too. That would be the thing, and cut out this fire business that they are hollering around here about, when there is a big part of this forest, you know, that you couldn't burn if you would sprinkle gasoline over it and light it. The most of it there is nothing to burn.

Some fellow up here on the Tonto-I guess it is true; he told it for the truth-he promised the forest reserve people that where they had-whenever there is a fire they say it is the duty of the permittees or the inhabitants, the people on the forests, to report this fire. This fellow was going along and he either branded a calf or dropped a cigarette, or did something, which kindled a fire in some brush, and he got down and put it out. But he thought he would report it to them anyway, having put it out by himself. He reported it to them, and they fined him for it. I think a big lot of this forest should be in grazing areas.

Mr. BOWDEN. There was a bill introduced in Congress at its last session, which provided that the remaining public domain, chiefly valuable for grazing purposes, be placed into grazing districts, and that it be leased on an acreage basis for long terms, and that the lands in the national forest chiefly valuable for grazing purposes should be put into these grazing districts, and that they should be administered as the grazing lands under long-term leases; that all of this administration should be by one department and that one department should grant these leases. Do you wish to make any comment on that system?

Mr. MARLEY. I think that that would be the best way. I think that would be a good thing. The main reason for my thinking that is this: This grazing is now handled by the forest reserve people; their employees are three men; that is, they are supposed to be, you know. This is a forest and they have got their certain regulations that should be followed out on a timbered forest, saw-timber country, and they haven't got it here. Therefore, they get mixed. It confuses things, you see. They are trying to do something when they are in another kind of country. Now, they talk about protecting the forest. As I said before, where there isn't any forest it really makes it hard on them to follow up their rules and regulations. Take, for instance, that between here and Salt River, where there is nothing but brush. The same rules and regulations apply as

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do right up on top of the mountains where they have the big timber. Anyone knows it would not be necessary, and it would be hard to follow the same rules and regulations in the two places. I think if they would change that and put the grazing land in one class and the timber land in another class, I believe it would be a very good thing, not only for the permittees but for the Government. I think they could handle both sides to better advantage.

Mr. BOWDEN. Then, in your judgment, a great deal of the forest land in this State is misclassified?

Mr. MARLEY. Yes, sir; I think it is, in my judgment.

Mr. BOWDEN. You would recommend that a reclassification be made?

Mr. MARLEY. Yes, sir; I would. I know that most of it is not forest. We all know that, you know.

Senator CAMERON. Mr. Marley, the range you refer to south of Prescott, it would take at least 100 acres of that to take care of one animal, wouldn't it, under ordinary circumstances?

Mr. MARLEY. Yes, sir; it would take at least 100 acres. That is, year in and year out and season in and season out. We have years there when we could put them all in one little corner, and then we will have years they all starve to death, and we do the best we can for them; that is, the biggest per cent of them.

Now, you asked me a while ago if we had as many cattle there on that range as we had there 10 years ago. Ten years ago, the neighbors say, and what I can hear of the number of cattle that were there, there were 4,000 cattle. They shipped nearly all of those cattle out, and I went in and bought the range and the remnant. There was not over a thousand, and we think we lost 40 per cent of those last spring. Now, our neighbors on the north, the O. X.'s, have sheep there. There was lots of range, and we thought we could get by without any loss on account of loss of range, but they all died anyhow.

Senator CAMERON. Another question I would like to ask you is this: Grazing lands selected by the State, to purchase them you have to pay $3 per acre. Of course that is entirely too high. What would you think would be a fair price, if you could get that price modified?

Mr. MARLEY. Of course you would have to classify the land. In some places it is pretty good and in some places not.

Senator CAMERON. I am talking about grazing land; that is not farming land.

Mr. MARLEY. Well, I know that, but even the land that has mountains on it and is rough and all that changes a whole lot down on these desert mountains. On the foothills it is not much good, but around Flagstaff, you know, up in that rough mountain country, which can not be farmed, or anything else, it will graze lots more cattle-it is lots better land.

Senator CAMERON. There are very few selections made up in that country. Most of the selections are made in the southern part of the State.

Mr. MARLEY. State selections.

Senator CAMERON. Yes.

Mr. MARLEY. There were a lot of them made around Seligman, Ash Fork, Flagstaff, and down as far as Winslow, and that is about

as far east as they go, to speak of; but there are a lot of them around Seligman, north of Seligman. Sanford has got a lot of them— Babbitts, Pollock-there are a lot of selections up there. Tony Johns has got a lot of selections up there.

Senator CAMERON. Take that land around Seligman; would you consider that too high?

Mr. MARLEY. It is too high. It is pretty hard to say what the price should be that should be put on it. I don't know. I know that the man that paid a dollar an acre for that land can't run cattle on it. They have got to pay taxes on it after they buy it. You pay a dollar an acre. A 2 per cent tax is 2 cents an acre. Then there is interest on the dollar, and they can not make it. For years up there they have tried. They have got to build tanks, and they can't make it. It costs too much; it takes too much of this land to run these cattle; and it is pretty hard to say, but I will say this: That I am in the cattle business and I know that country up there very well, and I would not go up there and put my money in that land at 75 cents an acre; take every acre that I use, I had to pay 75 cents an acre for it, and try to run cattle on it, I wouldn't try it.

Senator CAMERON. Thank you. Mrs. Hayes, will you come forward and make a little statement?

Mrs. E. HAYES (Globe, Ariz.). I should like to make a short statement to the committee.

Senator CAMERON. You are the first woman that we have had the pleasure of hearing, so we would like to have your version of the cattle industry. Did you say you were in the cattle industry?

Mrs. HAYES. Yes, sir; we have a permit on the reserve, also on the reservation.

Senator CAMERON. On the Indian reservation?

Mrs. HAYES. Indian reservation.

Senator CAMERON. What Indian reservation?

Mrs. HAYES, San Carlos.

Senator CAMERON. What forest reserve?

Mrs. HAYES. The Crook.

Senator CAMERON. How long have you been in the cattle business? Mrs. HAYES. Well, my father has been in, the cattle busines parctically all my life, and then since my marriage in 1908 my husband has been in the cattle business.

Senator CAMERON. Do you care to make a statement to the committee, or would you rather have the committee question you?

Mrs. HAYES. Oh, I would rather have you ask what you want to

know.

Sena tor CAMERON. Mr. Bowden, will you question Mrs. Hayes? Mr. BOWDEN. Have you a forest permit at the present time?

Mrs. HAYES. Yes, sir.

Mr. BOWDEN. What forest is that one?

Mrs. HAYES, On the Crook.

Mr. BOWDEN. How large is your permit?

Mrs. HAYES. Four hundred and fifty head.

Mr. BOWDEN. How long have you had that permit?

Mrs. HAYES. Well, Mr. Hayes's father had those cattle on the reservation before it was put under the forest reserve.

Mr. BOWDEN. What are the fees that you have to pay?