The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-07-21
Sheepmen Object to the Closing
of the Reserves.
IT CRIPPLES THE INDUSTRY
The Sheep Do Not Injure the Forests
and the Irrigating Streams Will
Not Be Damaged-An APP
peal Is Being Made.
W ashin gton Bureau of the Standard,
No. 1145 q Street n. w.


Brown of Utah and other representa-
tiyes of Western sheepmen have been
here this week presenting arguments
against the closing of the big Uintah
forest reservation to grazing. Their
mission is one interesting to sheep
growers in other states, because the
questions at issue involve other reser-
vations. Senator Brown in his remarks
said that the exclusion of the sheep
from the Uintah reservation will pro-
duce immense loss and injury to the
stock interests of Utah and cripple its
greatest industry; that the sheep do not
injure the forests; that the snow will lie
just as long and the irrigating streams
be preserved just as we'll where
sheep have been pastured as where they
have not; that by sending the sheep far
away from the settlements and up into
the hills there is less danger of pollut-
ing the water than if they were kept in
the lowlands, and that the reservation
should be reduced in size.
The advocates of grazing sharply
criticise Colonel May, special agent of
the interior department at Denver. who
made the report on which the reserva-
ton was closed. They claim he never
visited the reservation but once and is
uniformed as to actual conditions
upon it. In brief filed by ex-senator
Brown in the interior department ne
says:
Colonel May in his report saws he
visited the reservation in September,
ana 1T would appear from that and
other facts that he visited it only once.
He states that the duration of the graz
ing season is from May to October in
elusive. If this is intended to apply to
the season during which the sheep
craze in the reservation, it is a verv
great error; If 1t is INTENDED to apply
to other grazing, it is entirely too
small; the sheep Craze somewhere the
entire year. They do not Craze on this
reservation until about the 1st of July
and are taken off in September; 80 that
the season for which we ask that the
sheep may Craze in the reservation in
stead of being from May to October is
simply for two months-from the mid
die of July to the middle of September.
This branch of the report seems to be
modified in another part of the report,
in which he says: They move the sheep
up toward the reservation in the month
of May That would be true; they
might be moving toward the reserva-
ton in the month of May; but they at
tend to the lambing on the lowlands
and foothills: then the sheep are shear
ed; then gradually go forward toward
the mountains. The course OF sheep
raising in Utah consists Of utilizing the
great deserts in the western part of the
state. The sheep are wntered there
upon the heritage which cannot be eat
en- in the summer, both on account of
the lack of snow or water or on ac-
count of the nature of it, 1t becomes
a m NJ tat fttnc &c 1no,- Il
tender, and the object Of sheep raising
In Utah is to utilize the great desert.
From one to two million sheep are win
tered on the deserts every year thus
utilizing what can be of no service TO
any other animal or industry. When
the spring comes and snow goes away,
the sheep are gradually driven eastward
through the settlements to the foothills
east of the settlements, and from there
to this reservation and other mountain
Gus regions, arriving there about the
LIST or middle Of July. After ranging in
the mountains about two months. they
are again slowly driven through the
settlements back to the deserts.
The parks are similar to just such
lands everywhere in the inter mountain
country The forests, such as there
are, and whatever there are of them
are pine and not anything else, and
pine can never be eaten by sheep. They
twig whatever. 1t is impossible for
them to eat the chives of that kind of
tree; at least they never do.
The colonel says: The sheep eat I'D
every spear of vegetation they come to,
the leaves and tWigs and willow brush
AS high up as they can reach they de-
stroy every tree and sprout' In reply
to that We desire to say that sheep do
not eat every spear of vegetation I'M
less the ground is overstocked. Like
all other domestic animals. they eat a
little and pass on, unless they are
starved to eating the ground too close
ly. The statement of the superintend-
ert is at variance with the statement
on the next page, in which he says:
The herders are in the abit of crowd
ing their fiocks forward running and
trampling down the vegetable matter In
order to reach the fresh growing vege-
tation on the higher elevations The
eating of the willow brush and other
brush can have no injurious effect on
the reservation or to any industry.
The colonel further states: 'Refor-
estration follows fires, but not sheep
grazing He cites nothing in support
of this statement that reforestration
does not follow sheep grazing. We take
issue with him. We say that the evil
dence that we have and the experience
of our farmers is that the trees and I'M
derbrush spring up fresh every year
after the sheep have been there. Sheep
have been on the reservation for 80 years
constantly every summer. The young
growth has come Notwithstanding
sheep grazing and after sheep grazing.
1T is said that the cattlemen are
complaining of the sheep. In the CON
vention which met in June in Salt Lake
to discuss this question nearly half of
the members We're composed of cattle
men, and they were unanimous in be-
lieving that the sheep ought to be al
lowed to remain in this forest reserva-
tiOn. There are vastly more sheep
growers than Cattlegrowers in Utah.
Sheep growing is the substantial bust
ness of the state. because of its pecul-
lar conditions; it is adapted to sheep
growing, and we throw away the boun-
ties which nature has placed in our
hands when we try to distOrt them to
some other use than that for which
they were intended.
Colonel May prophesies that the
continuation of the present sheep graz
ing would result in a very few years in