US Presidency
1926

The highway system on which the Federal Government expends about $ 85,000,000 a year is of vital importance to the rural regions. The advantages to be derived from a more comprehensive and less expensive system. of transportation for agriculture ought to be supplemented by provision for an adequate supply of fertilizer at a lower cost than it is at. present obtainable. This advantage we are attempting to secure by the proposed development at Muscle Shoals, and there are promising experiments being made in synthetic chemistry for the production of nitrates. A survey should be made of the relation of Government grazing lands to the livestock industry. Additional legislation is desirable more definitely to establish the place of grazing in the administration of the national forests, properly subordinated to their functions of producing timber and conserving the water supply. Over 180,000,000 acres of grazing lands are still pastured as commons in the public domain with little or no regulation. This has made their use so uncertain that it has contributed greatly to the instability of the livestock industry.