Centennial Mini-Histories of the Forest Service

Of all the conflicts over land use the Forest Service has been involved in since its beginnings, the most persistent may be that over grazing privileges. When the 1891 act fostered creation of forest reserves from the public domain lands, it was already an established practice for residents adjacent to the newly declared forest reserves to graze domestic livestock on these lands. The practice raised the issue of what was to be the Government policy on the reserves regarding grazing. The new profession of forestry, only recently adopted from European teachings, had little to say about this subject because foresters were focused on trees and watershed protection. Yet, grazing demanded immediate attention by Government forest managers because it was an on-going problem with graziers demanding use of mountain rangelands. The final resolution of the issue combined politics and science.

Western ranchers were some of the strongest opponents of the creation of the forest reserves, because of their fears of grazing prohibitions. Concerned with erosion and other problems caused by overgrazing, the Secretary of the Interior did ban grazing on Federal forest reserves in 1894. This action led to public debates centered on the role of sheep in forest destruction. After a rapid growth in cattle ranches in the 1870's and 1880's, that industry declined so much that in 1900 sheep outnumbered cattle in most States of the West (Rowley 1985:14). Pinchot noted that the woolgrowers were the best organized interest in the West (1987:177). The battle placed sheep raisers and their supporters in Congress against the Department of the Interior and "irrigators" or ranchers dependent on upland forest watersheds.

In an attempt to mediate the conflict, an investigative committee was formed with Frederick Vernon Colville (1867-1937), botanist of the Department of Agriculture; Pinchot, forester from the USDA Division of Forestry; a representative from the irrigators; and one from the sheep graziers. On May 28, 1900, Colville, Pinchot, Albert E. Potter (1859-1944) of the Arizona Woolgrowers Association, and Professor E. C. Bunch "left Winslow, Arizona, and put in three weeks that made history for the grazing industry of the West" (Pinchot 1987:177). Pinchot observed that overgrazing does destroy forests, with sheep eating young seedlings. "John Muir called them hoofed locusts, and he was right" (ibid:179).

Yet, when the trip was over, Pinchot and Colville recommended to Interior Secretary Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1835-1909) that grazing be controlled rather than prohibited. Later, Pinchot justified the decision (1987:181): "In the early days of the grazing trouble, when the protection of the public timberlands was a live political issue, we were faced with this simple choice: Shut out all grazing and lose the Forest Reserves, or let stock in under control and save the Reserves for the Nation." This was based on the reality that many livestock producers did not oppose the reserves themselves as much as they reacted to the banning of grazing on the reserve lands.

In was not politics alone that led no the change in policy. Science (that is, range research) played an important role as well. Range research began in the USDA Department of Botany (1868-1901). Colville was asked by the Division of Forestry to carry out the first study in the summer of 1897 in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. Based on his observations of existing grazing practices, Colville concluded that sheep would not harm the range if properly controlled. By 1897, the Department of the Interior had gradually permitted cattle on forest reserves, but sheep were still banned except in the Cascades of Oregon and Washington, an exception that was granted perhaps because General Land Office Commissioner Binger Hermann (1843-1926) was from Oregon.

Colville took a middle position, calling for neither abolition of reserves nor the exclusion of sheep, recognizing that the welfare of the people would be better served by a "special tract permit system." This concept became the basis of grazing policy in the Department of the Interior and later the Forest Service (Rowley 1985:33-34). The plan called for a permit to graze a designated number of animals in a specific location to prevent overgrazing damage. Administration of the system was to be paid for by permit fees. The Forest Service began to impose fees in 1906. The revenues from grazing exceeded those from timber every year until 1910, and then periodically until 1920.

The difficult work of selling this policy of regulated grazing on a fee basis to western stockmen fell to Potter. Impressed by Potter, Pinchot hired him in 1901 to serve as grazing expert and appointed him in 1905 to be chief of grazing (range management). Potter had been a sheep rancher in Arizona and understood the people and issues involved in the conflicts over regulated grazing. He served well in a difficult job until his resignation in 1920.

The imposition of regulations was resisted by graziers, but research results helped support the Forest Service grazing practices and policies. Selected by Potter and Colville, James Tertius Jardine (1881-1954) and Arthur Sampson conducted grazing studies beginning in 1907 on the Wallowa National Forest in Oregon. The early research by Sampson on grazing and plant succession provided the grounds for deferred and rotation grazing. In 1910, Jardine was appointed chief of the Forest Service's newly created Office of Grazing Studies.

The issue of carrying capacity of the range was controversial because it determined how many animals a rancher could place on Government land. The bulk of the research on range management took place at the Great Basin Experimental Station (Intermountain Research Station) on the Manti National Forest outside of Ephraim, Utah, a location chosen by Jardine, Colville, and Sampson (who became its first director). Historian Thomas Alexander (1987) claims that professional range management emerged in the Forest Service largely as the result of the Intermountain Station's grazing research staff. After 1905 the district rangers in the Intermountain Region (southern Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and western Wyoming) were often concerned about the social and economic costs to local ranchers if they were forced to reduce stock numbers, while range researchers focused on the condition of the land. Over time it was the latter who determined policy based on their research findings on carrying capacity. In the end, the numbers of domestic animals grazing on the national forests were reduced, except during the war years.

The experience of the Intermountain Region influenced the grazing policies of other regions because that region had the most livestock. On the issue of grazing, by the late 1920's the Forest Service was shifting from "rule of thumb management to scientific range management" (Alexander 1987).

The scarcity of range management courses in colleges in this period led the Forest Service's chiefs of the Office of Grazing Studies to promote the internal training of foresters for positions as grazing assistants. Forest Service specialists labored to provide information as well, with Jardine especially credited for his numerous publications including the first comprehensive report on range management, published in 1919 with the help of Mark Anderson (Chapline 1980). In many ways the Forest Service was first in developing a model range management program for the world.

References

Alexander, Thomas G. 1987. "From rule of thumb to scientific range management: the case of the Intermountain Region of the Forest Service." Western Historical Quarterly 28(4) October:409-428.

Chapline, W. R. 1980. "First 10 years of the Office of Grazing Studies." Rangelands 2(6), December.

Pinchot, Gifford. 1987. Breaking new ground. Washington, DC: Island Press. [original 1947.]

Rowley, William D. 1985. U.S. Forest Service grazing and rangelands: a history. College Station: Texas A&M University Press.