🚀 go-pugleaf

   
   Yep, Don Baccus wrote to All on 31 Jul 95  10:09:30 
    about:   Re: more Welfare Cowboys? (eco):
Bc> From: donb@rational.com (Don Baccus)


  >>  I have yet to see a description on how this grazing land is
  >> leased.  It sould be leased one of three ways:

Bc> I can't answer for the state lands within each of the 17 states with
Bc> large amounts of public grazing lands, but as most of the range in
Bc> those states is managed by the BLM (i.e. federal), I'll provide
Bc> the answer for them:

   In California it seems the National Forests (USNFS) are the 
   Big Boys.   Smoky Bear carries a chainsaw and married a cow.  
   Spends his week-ends line-dancing.

  >>  1.   The right to graze is sold to the highest bidder.  Like T-Bills

Bc> Nope.

  >>  2.   The price is determined by the government and the users
  >> selected :      in some manner.

Bc> Bingo!
Bc> Federal grazing rights are normally attached to a ranch, i.e. if you
Bc> buy a ranch you usually get the grazing rights which belong to it.

  Some have challenged that is is not quite the way it works.
  However, I have friends who have been grazing public land in 
  that manner for several generations.  When one sees cattle in
  a certain region in our National Forest, we know who they belong 
  to before we see the brands.  So while Don's may not be a 
  technical or legal description, that is the way it often really 
  works for practical purposes.

  Perhaps I should mention that my grandfather was a cattleman
  and my father used to go on the cattledrives from the ranches
  to the National Forest after the snow-melt each spring.  This
  was often a co-operative effort between ranchers and done in
  the spirit of barn-raisings.  The cattlemen are the rich 
  local old-money.  "Landed gentry" is a term now politically 
  incorrect in this country.

  Don Baccus continues:
Bc> The general setup has been dictated by the history of the west: when
Bc> the various Homestead Acts were enabled, the land with water went
Bc> first and most of today's successful ranches are built around such a
Bc> homestead. (actually, normally a bunch of them lumped together - the
Bc> dominant ranchers had their vaqueros and buckaroos homestead and
Bc> (illegally) give the land to them).

Bc> In those days, ranchers would just run their cows on summer pasture
Bc> which was not valuable enough to homestead and was still in the
Bc> public domain.  There was no regulation and no fees charged.

  Land that nobody wanted ended up being federal land.  A close 
  look at our local National Forest map will show that the few 
  pieces of nice meadow and areas flat enough to build or grow
  on are now private islands in the National Forest.  This also 
  explains why the dry mountainous West has most of the public
  land, and it is not potential farmland.

  Those interested in economic theory may want to check out
  how when previously free resources become so scarce that
  they have market value -- it tends to impoverish the society 
  while enriching the rich with the accompanied increased economic 
  stratification of the population.  (This has many ramifications.)
  All this via standard supply-and-demand.
    
    Same effect when previously cheap resources become so scarce that
  they become expensive.  The resource in this case is the Public
  Land that some would like to see privatized to the highest bidder.

  This is also one of the mechanisms cited by population 
  reductionists (such as myself) who claim that population
  reduction (demand reduction) will enrich society.  The Rich
  Boys of course are against this.  All standard market theory.

Bc> Individual ranchers with the power to back up their claims would
Bc> use summer range as though it was their own, but their legal
Bc> standing was shaky - thus the infamous "range wars", rustling,
Bc> sheepmen-vs.-cattlemen battles, etc.

Bc> (this is a simplification, because a lot of unsuitable land was
Bc> also homesteaded.  Most of these folks, though, couldn't survive
Bc> without access to better water and the resulting fields of hay which
Bc> could be grown for winter forage.  Marginal ranches such as these
Bc> often ended up back in the public domain after abandonment).

Bc> The land was overstocked to the point where a population crash occurred
Bc> after a particularly hard winter in the 1890s.  It was claimed one

Bc>  that the ranchers
Bc> themselves realized that they were grossly overstocking the range.

Bc> When the feds began actually managing the open range on a permit
Bc> system, the historical claims of various ranches were recognized.
Bc> As they still are today.

  Mitchner's book; _Centennial_ describes this in the Denver area.
    Described there; ranches larger than many states and cattlemen
  often remain the local power brokers.  As Don suggested, cattlemen
  could have the best of both worlds by owning the good and also
  the watered land, while controlling/using federal land cheaper than 
  the maintenance of ownership.
  
    The modern day Cattlemen's 
  Association today remains by far one of the Nation's most powerful 
  lobbies.  One reason is that its members are made up almost entirely 
  of local Power Boys who demand their welfare in the name of America's
  romance with the independent cowboy.  Ironic, isn't it?

  This romance has not been given enough space on this thread,
  since it does appear to be one source that the welfare cowboy
  supporters such as Phil seem to be drawing from.  How dare 
  anybody challenge his heroes!  Again I reccomend _Holy Cows at
  the Public Trough_ for both a description of this Holy Cowboy
  myth and well documented pervasive environmental degradation
  perhaps worse than all clearcutting combined.

Bc> While the above is shakey on details, the general scenario is right.

  Agreed.  I do not know the technical laws, only the way they
  are implemented in the real world.

Bc> Let me save Phil Ronzone the trouble of posting:
Bc> "It's all a pack of LIES!  Don's LYING! LYING! LYING!!"

Bc> There - hopefully I've saved some bandwidth...
Bc> - Don Baccus -

  Your impersonation of Phil is excellent.  You have included
  the requisite number of exclamation points and all-caps, 
  as well as his utterly unsupported-opinion-as-fact style.
  We suspect he lives back-East.

  We will look to him to supply his endless circular list of
  objections that his primary opinion "proves".  Likely Phil
  will not catch the irony here.
  --Doug


... Smokey Bear carries a chainsaw and married a cow.