Senator JONES of New Mexico. Do you mean in connection with the forest reserves, Mr. Bowden?

Mr. BOWDEN. No, Senator; in connection with the privately owned ranches, the owners of which are now utilizing the public domain. Mr. HAGERMAN. Oh, I think to a certain extent that may be true in certain parts of New Mexico, particularly in Colfax County and perhaps in some parts of Chaves and Eddy Counties, but I do believe that there are vast territories in central New Mexico along Socorro and Grant and through that part of the country where large areas could either be sold or leased almost entirely irrespective of present established ranches.

Mr. BOWDEN. In those places where you have set up ranches for the purpose of utilizing this range, would it be economical to approve or adopt a policy which would separate the range from those already established ranches?

Mr. HAGERMAN. I think so in many cases. Of course, we speak of established ranches. In many cases it is a very vague and indefinite term when you come to analyze it, especially in connection. with many of the sheep ranches which might be called established. In many other places with the cattlemen there have been large areas brought under the control of particular individuals or companies in a rather definite way, and in such cases I think in answer to your question I would say that it would be economically wise and possible to rent or sell contiguous areas to the advantage of everyone. But in other parts of the State where particularly the sheepmen range over wide areas it would be a different matter, because they have just little water holes and ranches here and there which serve merely as stopping points for large areas of contigous ranges.

Mr. BOWDEN. In adopting a leasing policy on the public domain, would you favor the area basis or a per head basis?

Mr. HAGERMAN. Well, I would favor a combination of the two. I would favor the selection of such areas of such extent as seemed economically wise in the particular areas to be leased on an acreage basis, with the proviso that in these areas not more than a maximum number of stock should at any time be grazed.

Mr. BOWDEN. In other words, you favor an area basis, giving to the Government the power to determine the carrying capacity of these lands?

Mr. HAGERMAN. Yes. Not in a way that they do on the forest reserve. In our own case, if you will pardon me for mentioning it, we had a large area of land fenced, sold our cattle, and then rented this land to cattlemen for a series of years with no restrictions on it, except that at no time should they have more than a certain number of cattle on it at once, providing that we should be informed of all the cattle taken out and put in.

Mr. BOWDEN. How large an area did you lease?

Mr. HAGERMAN. One hundred and fifty thousand acres.

Mr. BOWDEN. Will you comment upon the use of the range by the lessees during the term of the lease?

Mr. HAGERMAN. Generally it was very satisfactory. The lease was long enough to permit them to have a continuous policy over a series of years, which really made them take care of the water and fences and rotate the land, take care of the grass, and it was

to their interest on account of the length of the lease to take care of it properly.

And because of the fact that even toward the end of the lease they could not put on it more than a certain number of head of cattle at once they did not overstock it. We did not interfere with them in any way, except to see to it that they did not put more than a certain number of cattle on. The maximum number was estimated on what we thought was its carrying capacity in the average year, not only the number of cattle that could live on it but could subsist well in connection with the conservation of the range and the reseeding of the grass.

Mr. BOWDEN. What was the cost of the administering of that lease?

Mr. HAGERMAN. By the lessees?

Mr. BOWDEN. By the lessor?

Mr. HAGERMAN. The cost of administering the lease by the lessors was two or three men to supervise it and look after our interests, and the taxes.

Mr. BOWDEN. The cost, then, was rather nominal, was it not?

Mr. HAGERMAN. And the interest, I should say, which is the main point. The cost was nominal, outside of the tax charges and incidentals in the way of interest, which, of course, is outside of the question.

Mr. BOWDEN. What is your opinion on a policy looking toward the future homesteading of the remaining public domain?

Mr. HAGERMAN. Well, speaking for New Mexico, it seems to me that you might well inaugurate a policy of leasing of the available remaining public domain that is capable of supporting cattle and sheep, and in making your selections you could quite readily exclude any possible areas that could to advantage be homesteaded under the present homestead law. But I don't think that grazing homesteads would be successful here. It is true, as the Senator was citing yesterday, that the number of homesteads entered in the State in recent years has been very large, but we don't know how many of them have been abandoned. My impression is that a very large proportion of them have been. I think that the State authorities and the people here generally know now pretty thoroughly well just what areas might possibly be homesteaded to advantage in the coming 10 or 15 years; and if there are any such, as there probably are, that they could be excluded from the leasing areas.

Mr. BOWDEN. Then would you exclude homesteading in the various leaseholds during the terms thereof?

Mr. HAGERMAN. I certainly would; yes. I don't see how you could combine the two. I think you have to choose. I don't believe it would be possible to carry on the stock business if homesteaders could come in.

Mr. BOWDEN. Will you state your reasons for that conclusion? Mr. HAGERMAN. Why, just observation in the eastern part of New Mexico of conflicts between homesteaders and stockmen without a leasing law, and from observation that practically all of the difficulties, range difficulties, come from those very conflicts. In many cases it is the fault of the cattlemen and in many cases it is the fault of the homesteaders, but it is a constant conflict. If you had a 10,000

acre lease and it was permissible for homesteaders to come in there it would absolutely ruin the whole program. However, I do think, as I said before, that the possible homesteading area left in the State could be well enough defined to exclude it from the operation of the leasing law.

Mr. BOWDEN. Well, how do you define homesteading?

Mr. HAGERMAN. Well, a 640-acre homestead I am referring to. The present homestead law, as I understand it.

Mr. BOWDEN. What would be your opinion about providing for an enlarged homestead act which would give a grazing homestead? Mr. HAGERMAN. I think if you did that it would exclude the practi: cability of any lease law. I think you would have to choose one or the other. And it does not seem to me from my little experience in Washington that it would be feasible to get through an enlarged grazing homestead law providing for sufficient land to really make a living on any of the remaining public domain in this State. There might be, but I don't think so.

Mr. BOWDEN. If that could be done would you favor it in preference to a leasing system?

Mr. HAGERMAN. I have never given that enough thought to be able to answer intelligently. I think if you could get a large enough grazing homestead law that it might be almost as good as the leasing system. Although it is a fact, as was said yesterday in the evidence, that the sort of people who are homesteaders are very often not the kind that make the best stockmen. And it does not seem probable that any homestead law could be put through Congress which would give a sufficient area to economically use the remaining ranges for grazing purposes.

Senator CAMERON. All right, thank you, Governor. Mr. Ralph Carr.

STATEMENT OF RALPH CARR, ANTONITO, CONEJOS COUNTY, COLO.

Senator CAMERON (presiding). Mr. Carr, will you give your full name and where you live, to the reporter, please.

Mr. CARR. Ralph Carr, Antonito, Conejos County, Colo.

Senator CAMERON. Will you make your statement to the committee, Mr. Carr, in your own way?

Mr. CARR. The problem which I have to present is entirely different from the one which has been bealt with by the witnesses since I came to the hearing. You have been dealing in the last two days with questions which arise where the grazing is over a large territory in New Mexico. I represent what may be very largely a small local problem in the San Luis Valley of the Rio Grande and Conejos River, in southern Colorado, in the Rio Grande National Forest which borders the Carson Forest, which is the northernmost reserve in the State of New Mexico. In that valley our interests are not only livestock raising, but also agricultural, and we have men who are engaged not exclusively in the livestock industry, but also in the agricultural industry.

The tendency in the last few years, since we have been rather outgrowing the old partido-contract system of running sheep and cattle, is toward breaking the herds up into smaller herds.

I represent the Conejos Sheep Growers' Association, with a total membership of 70, and representing about 86,000 head of sheep, which, as compared with your holdings down here in the individual case is small.

The effort of our State agricultural college and of our county agents has been to encourage the raising of the small farm flock. which will go into the mountains in the summer. We have comparatively a small amount of land which is not either agricultural and taken up already, or in the forest reserve. So that the question of the public domain does not enter in so much in our peculiar little locality. We have been trying, as I say, to encourage the small form flock.

This is a protest against the inelasticity of the rules of the Forest Service in failing to come up to the requirements of our changed conditions. Their rules at the present time are tending to discourage the small farm flock, and care for the larger interests. And it is against that proposition that I am here. It has been our experience in the San Luis Valley that the man who owns a small area of land perhaps and goes to the forest and who should for that reason be given some possible preference is forced very often to take his herds to some distant point or some farther forest reserve. Under the rules of the Forest Service and the ruling of its administrators we are unable to remedy that problem.

Our country was hurt in 1920 and has been suffering ever since from the drop in wool and sheep prices, and many of our smaller men have not been able to recover and to acquire the lands and interests in the valley which the commensurability plan of the Forest Service seems to demand. As the result, during the last few years I am unable to give exact figures on this, because I was away from home when I received word to come-our Rio Grande Reserve at least has suffered a decrease of perhaps 25 per cent in its carrying capacity. We have been favored, as you have not in New Mexico, by heavy rains, and our range is very good. It is our idea that the carrying capacity is much greater than the Forest Service thinks it is.

We feel that some method should be worked out whereby the sheep growers and the cattlemen might have a voice in fixing the policy on the particular range in question. Perhaps the plan mentioned by Mr. Morley yesterday would approximate it, but it probably would be carrying the pendulum too far in the other direction. Our idea is that a committee of the local stockmen should be permitted at least to have a voice in determining the question of whether or not a given range will support a certain number of stock, which is not at present the case.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Have you an advisory board of stockmen?

Mr. CARR. Yes; we have.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, what does it accomplish, if anything?

Mr. CARR. It has accomplished a great deal. The cattlemen have an association, and then the sheep growers have an association also, and they have accomplished a great deal rather among themselves than in connection with the policy of the Forest Service. This is a representative board selected by the growers at large, and it is our

idea that if this same board or a similar board were permitted to not only make suggestions but to have some authority in passing upon the question of the policy in that particular district, that happy results would obtain.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Then as to administrative matters you think that they should be taken away from the forestry officials and given to practical men who were using the property?

Mr. CARR. No, sir. Our idea is that it should be a joint administration.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, you have got to rest ultimate authority somewhere, have you not?

Mr. CARR. Yes.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, where would you?

Mr. CARR. Leave the forest questions, of course, absolutely in the hands of the Forest Service. Then leave the question of the determination of the use of the forest to the joint administration.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, suppose they could not agree?

Mr. CARR. Well, then, it would have to be left, in my opinion, to the heads of the Forest Service at some place outside of the local prejudice.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Would the people on the outside be familiar enough with conditions to pass upon a question of that sort? Mr. CARR. I believe that the heads of the Forest Service would not need to be sufficiently acquainted with conditions if both sides of the proposition were intelligently presented to them and they might act as umpires.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, have we not got that sort of forest reserve official at the present time?

Mr. CARR. I don't think it is working out in that way, sir, at least in our section.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Is it not reasonable to suppose that a supervisor of a large district, for instance, would give conclusive weight to his people who are on the ground?

Mr. CARR. Well, the tendency is in that direction, of course, always to O. K. the act of our subordinates in case of a clash with those over whom they are supposed to govern. But I think that could be worked out. It is a human problem rather than an absolute legal proposition.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. If it is a human problem I don't see how we can remedy it by legislation, do you?

Mr. CARR. I have faith in humanity.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, I hope we all have, but what change would you suggest in the present law on that subject?

Mr. CARR. Well, our idea would be to amend it so that not only the ranger but the owners might have a greater voice in the determination of that particular question.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, you would not word a law with that language, would you?

Mr. CARR. NO. That would be a detail which would have to be worked out.

Senator JONES of New Mexico. Well, ordinarily the details are the whole substance of an act.