Federal and State Rural Lands, 1950, with Special Reference to Grazing

Excerpts from the Preface: Approximately 60 percent of the land area of the continental United States is in farms. The nature and extent of the ownership and the uses of the land in farms are regularly reported in the Census of Agriculture and in various statistical series of the United States Department of Agriculture. No systematic arrangement has yet been made for similar reporting on the 40 percent of the land area not in farms. Roughly 10 percent of the land in farms and 60 percent of the rural land not in farms in continental United States are in public ownership. Publicly owned land in farms consists largely of Federal and State land leased to farmers and ranchers, and Indian land farmed by Indians or leased to non-Indians under guardianship of the Federal Government. Publicly owned rural land not in farms is used primarily for forests, parks, defense establishments, fish and game reserves, flood-control and power developments, protection of soils and watersheds, water supplies, public roads, and various other public purposes. Most of this land is administered under the principle of multiple use and much of it is made available to farmers and ranchers for supplementary agricultural uses under leases and grazing permits or by deference to trespass. The purpose of the study upon which this report is based was to present an inventory of the uses of rural land in Federal and State ownership in continental United States, and to appraise present and potential contributions of this land to agricultural production.