grazing permit or on acreage of land to be grazed, under some supervision to prevent overgrazing, but yet that the area should be limited, except to prohibit overgrazing? Colonel GREELEY. I think the cleanest-cut system is the one that we are following in the national forests, which is on a per capita basis. Senator SPENCER. Per capita of cattle you mean? Colonel GREELEY. Yes, sir. The CHAIRMAN. Or of livestock? Colonel GREELEY. Yes; per capita of cattle, sheep, etc. We issue permits for a certain number of livestock, and allot the area for sheep or cattle, as the case may be, on a clear-cut basis between the Government and the livestock producer. It is up to us to provide the range to accommodate that number of animals and to adjust the boundaries of the grazing allotments so as to provide forage for that number of animals. I think that you can control damage to range much more effectively if permits are on a per capita basis rather than on an acreage basis. Senator SPENCER. Would that mean that a man who has a very large number of grazing cattle, or sheep, or other animals, and would want a large area in order to accommodate them, and yet when he comes to you for that large area you would say: Now. in 6 months from now I will not have but half or a third of what I have now? Does the price that he pays month by month vary according to the number of cattle he actually has upon the area? Colonel GREELEY. Yes, sir; where those conditions exist. Senator SPENCER. How many do they have sometimes? Colonel GREELEY. Oh, some of the largest sheep outfits run from 40,000 to 50,000 animals, but those are the exceptions. There are quite a number that range from 10,000 to 15,000 sheep on the national forests. There are quite a number of cattle permittees that run from 700 to 1,500 cattle on the national forests. We have issued permits under some circumstances which provide that they shall graze a certain number of animals for three months, and a certain number for six months, and so on. The fees are based accordingly, in accordance with the number run during each grazing season. The CHAIRMAN. You have stated the maximum number grazed in the forest. Have you any knowledge as to the probable size of herds and flocks that are grazed on the public domain and privately owned land? I mean on the unreserved public domain. Colonel GREELEY. No, sir; I have no exact information on that, Senator. They are, however, like our herds on the national forests, of varying size. They range from small farm herds, a few head of cattle or a single band of sheep of 1,200 animals, up to some very large outfits. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; that is it, exactly; that is where I want you to arrive. There are probably much larger individually owned herds and flocks on the unreserved domain than there are on the forest? Colonel GREELEY. I think that is true. At least a larger number of big outfits. The CHAIRMAN. Well, in the beginning and by "in the beginning" I mean when the Bureau of Forestry first began the regulation of grazing on the forests, they systematically for a number of years reduced the number in the herds and flocks so that they are not nearly so large to-day as they were 20 years ago? Colonel GREELEY. That has been true in a good many cases, yes. It was a case of allotting the range available among the different people that were entitled to use it. The CHAIRMAN. Now, on the unreserved public domain where there has been no regulation and that system has not been followed out, it is probably fair to presume that the herds and flocks are comparable with those who made application 20 years ago for grazing within the boundaries of the forests? Colonel GREELEY. I presume that is a fair assumption, although there have been other factors, Senator, that have reduced the size of a good many outfits. The CHAIRMAN. Yes, particularly in the past four years. Colonel GREELEY. Particularly in the past four years, yes. Economic conditions cut down a good many of those large outfits, or have broken them up into smaller outfits. The CHAIRMAN. Colonel Greeley, in my letter to Mr. Sherman I requested for the benefit of the committee a copy of the Rachford report. In fact I requested a sufficient number for the members of the subcommittee. It is not so important, however, that we have these extra copies, if you have not more than one copy available. If you have a copy of that report we would like to have it. Colonel GREELEY. We have a copy here which we will give you, Senator, for the record, and we will follow it with the copies for the individual members of the committee. The CHAIRMAN. That will not be necessary if we have it copied in the record and made a part of the record, because it will then be printed in the hearings. Colonel GREELEY. Yes. The CHAIRMAN. Then the committee will in that way be supplied. Senator CAMERON. I move that this Rachford report be made a part of the record. The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection it will be so ordered. There is no objection. ("Range appraisal report," by C. E. Rachford, of the Forest Service, dated November 5, 1924, is printed in the record in full at the close of this day's hearing. See page 17.) Mr. SHERMAN. NOW, Senator, you also asked for all the rules and regulations pertaining to grazing the forests and lumbering of the forests. The grazing regulations have been recently revised, as you know, and they have gone to the printer, but it will probably be six months before we will have copies of them. We have no extra copies. I can furnish a copy in the same way for the record here. The CHAIRMAN. That will meet our desires if we may have one copy for the record. I can Mr. SHERMAN. Yes. The timber sale regulations are also in process of revision, and they should be completed within a day or so. also furnish those. Senator SPENCER. It would be helpful perhaps if we had the rules and regulations before the revision and the rules and regulations after the revision both incorporated. Colonel GREELEY. Would you like those in both cases, both in grazing and timber? Senator SPENCER. I think so. The CHAIRMAN. Yes; we would. Colonel GREELEY. All right, sir; we will furnish them to you. (The new grazing regulations here referred to and furnished by Mr. Sherman will be found at the end of this day's proceedings. See page 41.) The CHAIRMAN. Or if you have a brief of the revisions that have been made it would be sufficient, so that we can tell what changes have been made. Colonel GREELEY. We have been rather thoroughly overhauling all of the regulations dealing with the national forests during the last two years, and I think it would be most satisfactory, most easily used for references, if we gave you the completed copy of each, the earlier regulations, and the new ones. It is going to make your record rather voluminous, but we will be glad to furnish that material. The CHAIRMAN. We are anticipating rather a voluminous record of our hearings before we are through with them. Senator SPENCER. Would it be possible, Colonel Greeley, in furnishing that information, either on the old regulations or on the new regulations, whichever might be more convenient to you, to have in some way indicated the changes between the two? So that if we took up, for example, the new regulations, in reading them we would see in connection with our reading of them what the old ones were and what the changes were, and that would save a good deal of time of comparison on our part. Is that too much of an undertaking? Colonel GREELEY. We will do that as best we can, at least as to all the more important changes. There are a good many minor changes that it might be difficult to indicate, but we will indicate the more important changes. The CHAIRMAN. To the members of the committee in particular, and to you gentlemen, I have prepared a sort of a questionnaire or a summary of information that had occurred to me that we might want. Of course as the hearings continue undoubtedly we would add to this. I would like to read this for the benefit of the committee and those present. This is "Information from the Secretary of Agriculture which would be useful to the committee": Listing the national forests according to States in which located, to show for each 1. Total area in acres. 2. Acres of timberland. 3. Acres useful for grazing. 4. Acres not useful for grazing (rough, barren, or too heavily timbered). 6. Number of sheep and cattle for which grazing is sufficient in season under usual conditions. 7. Number of livestock (each of cattle, sheep) admitted 1923. & Number of livestock (each of cattle, sheep) admitted each year since 1906. 9. Charge for cattle and sheep for season in each year. 10. For each of years 1906, 1910, 1918, 1919, 1920, and 1924: (a) Number of permits issued for sheep, cattle. (b) Number of permits for under 100 head sheep, cattle. Of course that would only be for sheep, because I suppose you have no permits for that number of cattle. 11. Average area of dependent crop or grazing lands owned by each of above classes in 1923 or 1924. 12. Number of five-year permits issued for 1919 to 1923. 13. Number of 10-year permits issued in 1925. 14. Collections each year (a) From grazing. (b) From timber. 15. Number permits (and stock included) applied for and not granted in 1922, 1923, and 1924. Also any information available as to numbers of stock grazed upon the public domain (by States). That is some information that I thought we would like to have from the Department of Agriculture. Senator SPENCER. Of course, if there was any information incidental to those queries which the Department of Agriculture might themselves think of as amplifying it or explaining it, we would be Tery glad to have that incorporated also. Mr. BARNES. Mr. Chairman, may I suggest this? You would not object to our changing your schedule from 100, and so on, to fit our records? The CHAIRMAN. Not at all. This is only suggestive, and any way that you have of presenting your record will be satisfactory. Mr. BARNES. Our method has been of dividing cattle from 1 to 40, 40 to 100, 101, and so on. The CHAIRMAN. Any way that would attain the desired result. I have also prepared some suggestions of information that I thought we would like to get from the Secretary of the Interior or the Interior Department: 1. Area of unreserved public domain in each State. 2 Classes of land and stock carrying capacity in public domain (by States). I do not want to assume that they can give that information. However, they might have that knowledge and it would be well for us to request it. Mr. BARNES. We have it all published. The CHAIRMAN. Then they can get it. 3. Names and areas of Indian reservations in each State. 4 Received from grazing leases, each reservataion. That is, they lease the Indian reservations and the amount of stock. 5. Number each class of livestock so grazed in 1924. That is, on the Indian reservation. 6. Rate of charge per acre or per head. 7. Information similar to above re lands reserved for reclamation. It will appear in the record that it was stated earlier that the Department of the Interior did not lease or issue permits for grazing. Now, that is on the unreserved areas. They have certain reserved areas on which they issue permits, or I think it is done by leasing in acres. The withdrawn areas for reclamation purposes have in some instances been leased by the Interior Department, and the Indian reservations for many years in some States have been leased for grazing purposes. 8. Area of land in each State reserved for national park. 9. Area of land in each State reserved for other purposes. 10. Number homestead filings of each class in each State in 1922, 1923, 1924. 11. Number entries (each class and by States) that should have been completed but were not completed in 1922, 1923, 1924. Now, undoubtedly as we go along we can add to this, because there is much information, I know, that we are not going to think of without suggestion that we will want to acquire. Colonel Greeley, have you anything in mind that you might state to the committee that you think would be helpful to us in the conduct of our hearings? We will be glad to have any statement that you have in mind to make, or any statement that your associates may wish to make. Colonel GREELEY. Only this, Mr. Chairman, that at the proper time, or whenever the committee desires it, I would like to have an opportunity for representatives of the Forest Service to give the committee our viewpoint on a number of these questions, such as the policy in allotting public range as between the desirability of maintaining stable use by the established ranch men, and the desirability of providing for the newcomers who acquire lands and wish to establish themselves in the livestock business, usually in a small way. That has been one of the big problems that we have had to deal with keeping the established range user with as stable range rights as possible, and at the same time making reasonable provision for the new settlers and homesteaders whose lands require national forest range for their proper development. I would like to bring out something of the history and policy that we have followed in that, and lead up to the provision in our present instructions for the 10-year grazing permits, which represents our solution of that problem. I would also like at the proper time to give the committee our viewpoint as to the policy in charging for the use of national forest range lands, going into the history of that to some extent, and sketching the development of our grazing fees from the first regulation in 1905, when the Secretary of Agriculture took over the national forests, to the present time. It might take us a couple of hours to discuss those subjects, but I would like, whenever you desire to do so, to have the opportunity to take them up with you. |