[1] For the determination of the proper unit for pasturage farms the writer has conferred with many persons living in the Rocky Mountain Region who have had experience. His own observations have been extensive, and for many years while conducting surveys and making long journeys through the Arid Region this question has been uppermost in his mind. He fears that this estimate will disappoint many of his western friends, who will think he has placed the minimum too low, but after making the most thorough examination of the subject possible he believes the amount to be sufficient for the best pasturage lands, especially such as are adjacent to the minor streams of the general drainage, and when these have been taken by actual settlers the size of the pasturage farms may be increased as experience proves necessary.
REGULAR DIVISION LINES FOR PASTURAGE FARMS NOT PRACTICABLE.
Many a brook which runs but a short distance will afford sufficient water for a number of pasturage farms; but if the lands are surveyed in regular tracts as square miles or townships, all the water sufficient for a number of pasturage farms may fall entirely within one division. If the lands are thus surveyed, only the divisions having water will be taken, and the farmer obtaining title to such a division or farm could practically occupy all the country adjacent by owning the water necessary to its use. For this reason divisional surveys should conform to the topography, and be so made as to give the greatest number of water fronts. For example, a brook carrying water sufficient for the irrigation of 200 acres of land might be made to serve for the irrigation of 20 acres to each of ten farms, and also supply the water for all the stock that could live on ten pasturage farms, and ten small farmers could have homes. But if the water was owned by one man, nine would be excluded from its benefits and nine-tenths of the land remain in the hands of the government.
FARM RESIDENCES SHOULD BE GROUPED.
These lands will maintain but a scanty population. The homes must necessarily be widely scattered from the fact that the farm unit must be large. That the inhabitants of these districts may have the benefits of the local social organizations of civilization—as schools, churches, etc., and the benefits of coöperation in the construction of roads, bridges, and other local improvements, it is essential that the residences should be grouped to the greatest possible extent. This may be practically accomplished by making the pasturage farms conform to topographic features in such manner as to give the greatest possible number of water fronts.
PASTURAGE LANDS CANNOT BE FENCED.
The great areas over which stock must roam to obtain subsistence usually prevents the practicability of fencing the lands. It will not pay to fence the pasturage fields, hence in many cases the lands must be occupied by herds roaming in common; for poor men coöperative pasturage is necessary, or communal regulations for the occupancy of the ground and for the division of the increase of the herds. Such communal regulations have already been devised in many parts of the country.
RECAPITULATION.
The Arid Region of the United States is more than four-tenths of the area of the entire country excluding Alaska.
In the Arid Region there are three classes of lands, namely, irrigable lands, timber lands, and pasturage lands.