They are accompanied by the certainty of a future loss not less important, for range lands once badly overgrazed can be restored to their former value but slowly or not at all.

The obvious and certain remedy is for the Government to hold and control the public range until it can pass into the hands of settlers who will make their homes upon it.

As methods of agriculture improve and new dry-land crops are introduced, vast areas once considered unavailable for cultivation are being made into prosperous homes; and this-movement has only begun.
The single object of the public land system of the United States, as President Roosevelt repeatedly declared, is the making and maintenance of prosperous homes.

That object cannot be achieved unless such of the public lands as are suitable for settlement are conserved for the actual home-maker.

Such lands should pass from the possession of the Government directly and only into the hands of the settler who lives on the land.
Of all forms of conservation there is none more important than that of holding the public lands for the actual home-maker.
It is a notorious fact that the public land laws have been deflected from their beneficent original purpose of home-making by lax administration, short-sighted departmental decisions, and the growth of an unhealthy public sentiment in portions of the West.