The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-03-29
FOREST SERVICE
RUINS INDUSTRY
Startling Statement Made of
Cattle and Sheep
in Utah.
RAlSERS ARE IN REVOLT
STEWART AND cALLiSTER DE-
SCRIBE CONDITIONS.

That the forest service is running the
cattle and sheep industry in Utah, and
that the cattle and sheepmen have be-
come so disheartened that they are
threatening to withdraw from the state,
is the startling declaration made by c.
B, Stewart, secretary of the Utah Wool
Growers association, and Arthur II.
CaIlister, secretary of the state board
of sheep commissioners, who returned
to Salt Lake yesterday after a weeks
tour of the southern portion of the
state, and northern Arizona. Mr.. Stew
art and Mr.. Callister left here the first
of last week to confer with the sheep
and cattle raisers and to investigate
an unusually heavy grist of complaints
which have been coming in with marked
frequency.
They found conditions throughout the
state, so far as the sheep and cattle in
dustry is concerned. to be most serious.
Sheep and cattle are dying Of thirst and
starvation, due to the cutting down of
grazing privileges in the forest reserves,
and point has been reached where the
growers feel they have encountered the
limit and are beginning to talk of
throwing up in despair.
The trouble, it is stated by Mr.. Stew
art and Mr.. Callister, is the wholesale
reduction by the forestry bureau of the
grazing privileges of the settlers who
have utilized the lands in the southern
part of the state for upwards of thirty
years, and giving the privileges mostly
to one large cattle company. 1t is
charged that large area of the forest
reserve in Kane county has been fenced
off by the government for the use of
one cattle company, which pays for the
privilege of grazing 5000 head of cat
tie. but which, it is charged. actually
has as many as Il, 900 head. This action
on the part of the forestry bureau has
resulted in forcing the other cattlemen,
those who have built their homes in
that district and assisted in the opening
up of the state, off the reserves, or cut
ting them down to a paltry 200 head
of cattle.
Sheep Men Also Hit.
The sheepmen, as a result, are prac-
tically entirely eliminated, and in
stances were cited of where it is neces-
sary to drive sheep from twenty-five to
fifty miles for watering. 1t was stated
to Mr.. Stewart and Mr.. Callister that
because of the great distance necessary
to drive sheep to water, and then back
to the grazing lands, that the sheep
were Unable to stand the trip, and that
fully 20 per cent of the flocks had been
killed as a result.
A. D. Finley, a prominent sheep and
cattle raiser, informed Mr.. Stewart that
the southern people had run over 140, 600
head of sheep on the Buckskin reserve,
now known as the Kiabab reserve, but
that they have been cut down to 5000
head, notice of this intention on the part
of the forestry service having recently
been given. Mr. Finley called attention
to the alleged special privilege enjoyed
by one cattle company in being per-
mitted to Craze $4,000 head of cattle on
that reserve, while other raisers were
limited to 200 head at the very most.
The forest service, the cattle and sheep
men claim, is giving the cream of the
land to the one outside concern, and
practically eliminating the Utah set
tiers who occupied the reserves for
years.
Speaking of forest reserves in the
southern part Of the state and in north
ern Arizona, Mr.. Stewart said that there
was very little forestry to be seen. Fully
80 per cent of the land included in for
est reserves, he said, is practically with
out stick of timber. It is comprised
mainly Of sagebrush and here and there
a lonesome cedar, which would do good
service for a fence post, but nothing
else.
Will Make Petition.
This barren land, he pointed out, has
been included by the government in
forest reserves, when there is not the
faintest semblanae of forest to be pre-
served. The result has been the arous-
ing of no small degree of dissatisfac-
ton among the sheep and cattle men,
and they are going to make a deter
mined effort to remedy conditions.
The plan is to combine in a petition
TO set aside these barren parts of pres
ent forest reserves and turn them over
as grazing reserves, in which an equal
show should be given every sheep and
cattle man of the state. 1t was an
nounced yesterday by Secretary Stew
art that he would at once take the mat
ter up with the chief of the forestry
service. He is satisfied that there is
something radically wrong in the pres
ent system, as he has convinced himself.
as a result of his recent trip, that the
cattle and sheep men of the state are
not kicking simply because they want
to say something.
He emphasizes the statement that
conditions are of a most alarming ma
ture. AS a result of the constant re-
duction of grazing forces by the fores-
try department. the sheepmen have
virtually been driven to the arid Dor
lions, and they insist that if the state
experiences dry summer, every head
of cattle and sheep in the southern part
of Utah viii be wiped out through thirst
and starvation.