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Mr. MCLEAN. Then you would make the lease commensurate on owning land?
Mr. PENCE. Yes; and show some signs of good citizenship.

Mr. NESBIT. The objection you will find there is this: In Arizona or New
Mexico on leased land the investment is in wells and reservoirs, so in working
out a system we would have to consider the conditions governing that par-
ticular locality, whether the permanent improvement was in land, growing hay,
or deep wells and reservoirs. That makes the range better and all this should
be considered in deciding a man's dependability when you come to giving him
his allotment on the range.

Mr. McLEAN. Then he must have the right to dig a well. At the present
time he doesn't have that. We want to fix it so he can do those things.
Mr. PENCE. The point is this: We have quite a good many railroads through
this country. A big sheep or cattle outfit might come in and summer on us and
go some place else to winter. That would crowd out bona fide settlers from
summer and fall range. We would have to be very careful that we didn't do
Something that would apply in Utah and Nevada and not here at all. Some
outfit might bring their sheep here and stay here five months and eat all the
feed and then ship out for the winter.

Mr. NESBITT. Canada has a leasing system. A man there is given three
years notice of there is to be any change. They have now extended this to
four years, figuring three isn't time enough for him to liquidate his interests.
It might be well in large bodies of land to figure on a leasing plan, but a
man should have notice when they are going to cut his allotment or make
any change.

Mr. PENCE. I doubt if you could make it a law that a man couldn't take up a homestead. That would be showing privileges to early settlers. They should still have the privilege of coming West and taking up land that they want. I don't believe you could ever say there could be no more homesteading. As far as proving you can make a living on a homestead, a man can go out on any dry hill and say he can make a living on it raising cattle or sheep and get a hundred people to swear that he can do it even though they know he

can not.

Mr. MCLEAN. Under the Forest Service, you can take up a homestead, but you can not prove up on it until you can prove to their satisfaction that you can make a living on it. If they can do that, we are perfectly willing they should take a homestead. We don't want to stop people from settling where there is any advantage to them in doing it, but the Government has no business encouraging people to settle on dry land where there is no hope of making a success and I think Senators and Representatives all feel that way. They go and homestead a piece of land where we know they can't make a living and spend the best years of their life trying to do something impossible to do, to say nothing of the money they waste on such a place.

Mr. MCKNIGHT. I don't believe the Government is doing that any more. We have many complaints that the Government is too rigid and that they are canceling homesteads when they shouldn't do it. There is more complaint of that than anything else in the land office to-day and that their requirements are too rigid, all to the discouragement of the homesteader, and the people are clamoring for more privilege clamoring for appropriations to reclaim lands. We are making a strong pull upon the Government to do something in reclaiming new lands. The Government is holding back. It looks rather discouraging on their part and I don't believe the Government is too blame. We think the people are demanding these things more than the Government. Mr. MCLEAN. Of course, when it comes right down to it, the Government is the people in this country.

Mr. W. F. STYRNS. I didn't hear anything of this until yesterday. I will do what I can to help.

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Mrs. MCINTYRE. I think it would be all right if they would just do it right but if it is like many other things, it will be worse than it is now. A few minutes ago you said something about priority right and you said would be the time. That is a big word. Why couldn't some one come in and run in a thousand head of cattle and that would be "now"? Wouldn't he be using the range at the present time?

Mr. HOUSEHOLDER. No; he couldn't prove he had had cattle running on the public lands for years and is now in possession of it. Your position would be the same as Mr. Styrns. He would have no trouble proving he had been in use of the lands for years. No one could ship in cattle and put them on range you had been using and prove priority right. The idea I was trying to convey

was that the priority right wouldn't date back to some one who had grazed on the land long before you homesteaded it but would consider the present user. All the range was used by people long before there were any ranches in this country. It would have to be decided to the best interests of the present user. That is the only way it could be justly handled.

WALTER PENCE. I want it understood that I am in for reconstruction of the Forest Service.

Mr. NESBITT. I would like to make a little illustration for Mrs. McIntyre. I think she will agree with me that a few years ago there was good winter feed and had to buy less hay. Since the irrigration projects were put in water runs down the gulches all summer. There are hundreds of horses and cattle in there now, and it has put your feeding cost up to where the business has almost broke you. The question we are fighting to settle is that if we have a good spring range and go to the forest in the summer it should grow and mature so we have fall feed. Now, if I leave, the feed is all eaten up and we have to go and buy hay four or five months where we used to feed only two or three, and that added cost of production of sheep and cattle has put us on the rocks. That is, one of the vital questions that has come up is in conserving the range for the stock that use it. The grass must rest some time during the summer if it is going to mature and seed. We want some form of protection, and that is what we are trying to get. If we have to pay out everything for feed, we just as well get out of business. The people who are using this land should have the grass to run their stock on.

Mr. HOUSEHOLDER. We have to devise some system of reducing the cost of production. You must get some system of producing cattle cheaper. Cattle are cheap now and hardly worth looking after, but at the same time we must arrange some system of producing cheap, so when prices raise we will have a little profit. Of 13 outfits in the State of Idaho, they keep a set of books and have them very accurate. There are 123,000 head in the 13 outfits. They have a cost of production, and you might think it is just hot air, but if you examine their books you will find the facts. It costs $10.40 a head to run sheep in this State. Mutton and wool is a fair price at this time and as good as we can expect on a permanent basis, and in order to make a profit we have to reduce running expenses and costs of production. We have to get this figured out some way, so we can get some value out of these ranges and not buy quite so much hay. We might have to cut down and run under fences, but we must produce cheaper, as we can not expect prices to be higher than the present prices.

Mr. CLYDE CURRAN. I am not posted, but as in favor of reorganization of the Forest Service. Get it so we can run cattle there on the forest and here on the public domain both. As it is a man has to pay more than they are worth to run them up there.

Mr. HOUSEHOLDER. Do you think if the Forest Service could be reorganized that they would be the proper people to handle the balance of the domain?

Mr. CURRAN. I don't think we should put it under the Forest Service if we are going to have to buy a ranch to get any of it. That is what it would mean. Mr. HOUSEHOLDER. It will be put under some class of legislation, and I doubt if we would be any better off if it was put under any other organization. The object is to get it administered as cheap as we possibly can.

Mr. MCLEOD. I haven't much to say. I would like to say just a few words about people having objections to the system proposed in leasing the range. We who were in the cattle business when the Forest Service was first created know what trouble we had with the Forest Service when they started alloting the range. We couldn't get along with them. I don't believe the Forest Service as at present is fit to handle the public domain, so I just want to voice my objection to the Forest Service as it is now.

Mr. HOUSEHOLDER. I think the opinion of all the meetings is that they wouldn't want the present Forest Service to handle the public domain. They have all asked for Government control administered by the Forest Service after reorganization of the present Forest Service.

Mr. NESBITT. In the matter of regulations, something that happened at Baker City. Some of the officers of the organization there had an allotment down toward Call Valley. The forest ranger recently made a new regulation that they must put out 13 pounds of salt per head for their cattle. On certain days they had to put out the salt, and then a little later, if any was left, they must take it and move it some place else. One of the men told Cavanaugh, the district officer at Portland, and he said he didn't know anything about it and

hadn't instructed that any such ruling be made. Previous to this 8 pounds of salt per head was what the regulations called for. This year they had to put it out on certain days, and if there was any left move the cattle and move the salt.

Mr. MCLEAN. Don't you think the whole trouble would be fixed if they just administered the rules? These rules should be made by a body of stockmen and administered by the Forest Service. They shouldn't both make and administer them when they aren't livestock men. In any other branch of the Government, it isn't handled that way. Then there should be a court of appeals outside the department to appeal to. One man said, "Give us a court of appeals and I don't care if Hindenburg runs the forests. With a court of appeals we could get justice."

Mr. HOUSEHOLDER. There have been some suggestions måde as to how the publie domain should be handled. It has been the opinion of most that these leases should be long-term leases and some suggested as long as 20 years and to be a permanent lease in this way: That any time during the time of this lease if you decided to retire you could sell the unexpired term of the lease to other men and he would be assured of continuing that lease to the end of the term. At the present time you might have a permit you could use 20 years but if you sold the stock you have it carried with it only one year's lease. Somebody suggested to that ranger at Baker that if that salt was changed every 10 days they would feed this range off evenly and that is where he got the idea of changing the salt and feeding the range off evenly all over. As long as the Forest Service is situated as it is now no one supervisor can regulate everything, it never will be satisfactory.

Mr. MCKNIGHT. There has always been a jealousy between those departments of Government, the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior. There is great rivalry between them and more or less jealousy. Neither wants to give up to the other. Each is suspicious of the other that they are going to invade the rights of the other department. Any kind of conservation of grasses or trees in the national forests is under the Department of Agriculture and your public lands under the Department of the Interior. In the past, the Department of the Interior has had nothing to say whatever and hasn't interfered with you people grazing on the public domain until you filed a homestead on it; then it required you to comply with the homestead regulations. Out on the public domain they haven't allowed you to build fences but have allowed you the perfect freedom in the use of it and your trouble has been in the Department of Agriculture. Now the question comes if you give up grazing privileges you now enjoy on the public domain, are you willing to give them to the Department of Agriculture? See how you want to differentiate between the two departments. I believe most of you say you want the Department of Agriculture regulated. When you go to them, what are you going to say? With them the conservation of the timber is the main thing; your grazing is incidental. The intention first was to put you out and not allow you in at all. We showed those people that the livestock in the forests would not be a menace to that young timber but would be a help to it and help preserve it by keeping down the grass and undergrowth and thereby eliminating some of the danger of fires. They have made a money-making proposition out of this. It was the original intention to make it self-sustaining. You know what amount of money has been collected from

you.

What are you going to do about this? If you are going to get the public domain allotted, do you want to take it out of the Interior and put it in the Agricultural Department?

Mr. MCLEAN. Instead of having thousands of rules and regulations as the Forest Service now has, it has been suggested that we have one law making it unlawful for you to destroy the grasses or grazing on the watersheds on the forest or public lands and then turn your allottment over to you to run as you saw fit, knowing if you injured that grass or watershed in any way you would run up against the Federal law. In that way, any livestock man could manipulate his own business and much better than the Forest Service

can.

Mr. NESBITT. Congress is going to do something with the public domain. The question for us to settle is what we want. It isn't that we are asking to have anything done. They are going to do something and we must know what is best for us. Senator Stanfield told us Congress was going to do something with the public domain. He don't know just what will be done

but wants to get this matter before the people of the West and see what they want and try to put it over in the East. It seems unfortunate that there are no Members of the House on this committee. They are all out of the Senate and we anticipate quite a lot of trouble in the House in putting anything over. They want a concrete plan that the West is uniform in. We want to get the best we can.

Mr. HOUSEHOLDER. Mr. McLean, will you read the resolutions which have been adopted at the other meetings?

(Moved by Mr. Donald McLeod that the resolutions as read be adopted. Motion seconded by William Cotton. Motion carried and resolutions adopted.) Mr. MCLEOD (of Oregon). Whatever suits you people around here suits us, too, as we have about the same conditions you have.

(There appearing to be no further discussion the meeting adjourned.)

PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETING HELD AT BOISE, MONDAY, JUNE 22

Meeting in charge of Mr. F. S. Gedney, chairman of the public lands committee of the National Woolgrowers' Association and member of the advisory board of the Idaho Woolgrowers' Association, who introduced Donald McLean, secretary of the Idaho Woolgrowers' Association. Mr. McLean reviewed briefly the data which had been gathered at previous meetings. Mr. W. H. GIBSON. Gentlemen, I am not an invited guest, simply an interloper, but want to call your attention to the meeting of the central association regional advisory board held here July 16. As many of you know, this regional board is intended for the purpose of providing transportation for our commodities. You as stockmen are vitally interested and especially at this time because effort is being made at this time throughout this district-Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho-to provide advance information as to cars ordered and cars in transit of all stock shipments. Such information as you furnished last year we are advised was very beneficial to the sheep interests of this State. This is being worked out in Colorado and extended to Wyoming. We hope your organization will be represented at our meeting July 16. Not only stockmen but every producer in Idaho is vitally interested.

Gov. C. C. MOORE. I do not know anything I could say at this time that would help your problems; in fact, I hardly know what you are attempting to do. I know there is some attempt or desire to get the range conditions in more satisfactory shape. I learned more, of course, from listening to Mr. McLean than I have known before. Of course, the range conditions I imagine in Idaho has been dependent a good deal on the survival of the fittest. Just what can be done or what should be done is a matter for you people to decide who are giving time and interest and money to do it, it should be of more importance what you think, than what I think. I note with interest, I might add, as to the number of people that have tried to farm land here and deserted the farms. I think perhaps the number is greatly exaggerated. I doubt if twelve hundred people have left the farms in the Idaho Falls country. I do know a great many left the farms because they couldn't make a living when the cycle in rain falls changes as it always changes every few years. They will have four or five years of good crops and then it will be bad for a few years. I know many failed and left in the dry farming country and I know many left who were farming under better conditions they thought. I think many acres have been plowed up that never should have had a plow put in them; at least not until there was a greater demand for increased acreage of crops than there is now.

The great God of nature has seen fit not to encourage all our development at one time or in one way. That is one reason our Government projects have come along a little at a time, when they were needed. In the first reclamation work the canals in Blackfeet and St. Anthony country were built under very poor circumstances and conditions, one person working and hauling freight to get stock in the canal, another doing some other work, yet they succeeded fairly well. They have accomplished what they were trying to do for that particular time, but as people came into the country and the country advanced, and they thought it necessary for more development, then came the Twin Falls reclamation project, put through hurriedly with bonds sold and money raised, so the

men who settled the Twin Falls country under the Carey project went on their land with work done that had been accomplished by the Upper Snake River Valley men with years of toil. That shows the better degree of development. New work has gone ahead from time to time. We have the Sunnyside proposition and others; some have met with success, some with failure. All gets back to the fact that the country should not be developed all at once or beyond a point where it would pay to develop it. The Sunnyside proposition would be a benefit, because the land is good; there is plenty of water available, but the returns wouldn't justify the investment now. A great many people did desert those dry lands. A year or two like this and you will find people wanting to settle these lands again, and they may be successful in doing this for a time. There is no question but the lands will come back and can be farmed again quite successfully.

There has been much land taken from the stockmen that never should have been plowed up at all.

The question of who should control the public domain I imagine is one of the important things you have in mind at this meeting. I am frank to say that my knowledge of this question will not permit me to voice an opinion. If the duties of my office would permit, I would like to remain and hear what your opinions are. We will all agree, I am sure, that the ranges of the State should be conserved for the people of Idaho, but who is going to control these ranges, whether the State or Government, and in what department that control should be placed, is a question I am not sufficiently advised on to even make a recommendation.

I do know this, that a trip to Washington will satisfy you, as it has me, that there is a great deal of jealousy between the different departments in Washington. I find quite a great deal of time given over to discussion of what department different matters should come under. For instance, I went down there recently to take up the study of an insect that cost this State $5,000,000. We went to one department and were assured that if it were studied from that department they would contribute something toward fighting this insect; otherwise they wouldn't, and the whole question was revolving around whether it was an insect or plant disease; whether it belonged to the bug department or the plant department. There are many departments, and departments within departments. The heads of all these are trying to build up their own department and don't like to see things go into other departments.

The question of control of these lands will, of course, be worked out, I presume, by degrees. I want to see this. I am talking largely in the dark and know nothing except from the remarks I have heard since I came in, but I do have faith in the people of this country, regardless of political affiliation, faith in the people of Idaho and the people of our respective counties and communities, and believe they will go into these hearings in a fair-minded way and that. these things will be adjusted in a fair and equitable way.

It will finally be worked out. There is always the problem of the survival of the fittest. In this great State where we have so many resources there is room for different classes of stockmen, for the farmer, and in this great country of ours for all industries. I certainly hope the people of Idaho will be recognized and that the stock industry will get that which is coming to it from the natural resources of our State.

Mr. TAYLOR. Don't you think there is just as much jealousy among the departments in the statehouse as there is in Washington?

Governor MoORE. I was not discussing the statehouse.

Mr. TAYLOR. I know, but don't you think the same condition exists? That is only human, for the head of each department to want things in his own department and I think that condition exists in the statehouse the same as in Washington. Isn't there jealousy between the land department and the department of reclamation?

Governor MOORE. There is not. So far as I know Commissioner Swenson has handled his department very well without any interference from the land department.

Mr. TAYLOR. Yes; but there has been trouble between the land department and the fish and game department.

Governor MOORE. I think there was under some previous administrations, but that condition has not existed during my administration.

(At this time Mr. McLean was requested by the chairman to read the bill which has been drawn for the purpose of establishing grazing districts on the public lands in this country and Alaska.

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