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The Development of Utah Livestock Law 1848-1896
THE DEVELOPMENT OF UTAH LIVESTOCK LAW 1848-1896
BY LEVI S. PETERSON
The cow or horse or sheep was a piece of ambulatory property. Looking much like any other of its kind, it had to be protected against loss and confused identity. Having value, it had to be protected against theft. Being prone to wander, it had to be kept from trespass and destruction of agricultural property. Thus arose in Utah's territorial period a considerable body of livestock law which may be divided into three general groups: laws disposing of grazing lands; laws establishing and ensuring the ownership of animals; and laws dealing with trespass and strays. Three legislative bodies contributed to this law. The Salt Lake High Council acted as the city's legislature from late 1847 to late 1849. The legislature of the provisional State of Deseret functioned from 1849 to 1851. From 1852 to 1895 the legislature of the Territory of Utah passed the bulk of the law with which this essay is concerned.
GRAZING AND RANGE LAWS
The territorial laws governing the disposition of grazing lands were not imposing in number. Their cultural importance, however, was great, for they in effect countered federal policy concerning the public domain. By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States government acquired title to the area later to be called Utah. The federal government gradually diminished the public domain through reservations for military bases, Indian lands, and forest preserves and through alienation to private owners by means of the pre-emption and homestead laws. The pre-emption and homestead laws gave each settler a maximum of 160 acres, far from enough in many areas of the arid West where livestock grazing was the only possible utilization of the land. The livestock industry of Utah, like that of other Western States was of necessity based upon the public domain. Over the vast portion of Utah that remained the public domain, there was no strictly legal way to regulate conflicts arising from its competitive use. Not until the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 did Congress give the livestock owners a secure tenure upon the part of the public domain that their animals customarily grazed.
There is little evidence of conflict over the range in Utah before the late 1870's. This was undoubtedly due in part to the non-violent nature of the Mormon settler who preferred buying out his competitor or simply sharing his range to fighting for it. The Mormon colonists at Bluff, faced in 1884 with the alternative of violence or purchase as the means of removing a herd of sheep from grass essential to their milk stock, chose to buy the sheep at an extortionate price. Conflict over range land was also averted in early Utah by legislation. Both Mormon Church and territorial government favored a controlled disposition of the public domain. Speaking as prophet, Brigham Young advised cattle owners in 1853 to group into fencing companies and to enclose vast tracts of land — plots of "about fifty thousand acres" — until "all the vacant land is substantially enclosed." He showed this same indifference to the federal government's right to the final disposition of this land in his message as governor to the territorial legislature of 1853. He recommended that legislation be passed for the strict regulation of herding and grazing grounds.
For some 20 years, the territorial government legislated control over the public domain. In a series of laws not in strict harmony with federal policy, the Utah Legislature prevented non-resident herders from encroaching upon grazing grounds necessary to settlements and regulated resident stockmen in their use of the surrounding public domain. These laws reversed an early act of the State of Deseret. In its fence law of 1851, this government gave momentary recognition to the freedom of the public domain. All unenclosed lands were "hereby declared common pasturage, and all peaceable animals shall be free to run at large and graze thereon, except swine." However, from 1855 to 1857 more than 30 acts were passed granting herd grounds on the public domain to private citizens and to the Mormon Church. Grants involving a hundred square miles were not unusual. This kind of territorial control over the public domain did not last long, for Governor Alfred E. Cumming reminded the legislature in 1859 that only the federal government could give valid title to these lands. Claiming that the private grants had "become exceedingly oppressive to certain portions of the community," he recommended that they be abolished. The legislature of 1859-60 heeded his recommendation by repealing 33 acts granting grazing grounds on the public domain.
A more enduring territorial control over the public domain was written into several acts which in effect authorized county courts to regulate grazing grounds locally. The herdsman act of 1854, designed primarily for licensing professional herders, also gave county probate judges power to designate the location and size of their herd grounds. This act specified that the designated herd grounds must not be "so located as to interfere with any previous rights, nor with the range necessary for the animals of any settler or settlement." This assumed right to reserve the public domain to those settlements which it surrounded appeared again in the surplus stock act of 1865, by which the legislature authorized citizens to vote whether the grazing grounds immediately surrounding their respective settlements would be reserved for their milk and draft animals. If twothirds of the citizens so voted, all livestock not needed for daily use were to be driven to more distant herding grounds.
The right given to county courts to license herdsmen and designate their grazing grounds appears to have worked into effective local control over the public domain. County records show that grazing grounds were granted to numerous applicants, both as individuals and as communities. Although these grants were to expire annually and often stipulated that other residents of the county could graze their animals on the designated herd ground, they appear to have offered a security of tenure that made them attractive. Court records reveal cases in which stockmen of one precinct or county were protected in their possession of herd grounds against stockmen of another precinct or county. In July of 1866, for example, a selectman from Rockville was appointed by the Kane County Probate Court to warn the people of Toquerville to remove their cattle from a certain herd ground. The selectman reported in September that the people of Toquerville had removed their cattle as requested.
Regulation of grazing upon the public domain lost all statutory support by the animals-at-large act of 1874 which repealed the early acts authorizing county courts to designate herd grounds and to prevent non-resident grazers from placing their animals upon ranges close to settlements. Bills providing for new regulation were presented in later years, but did not become law. With the passing of local control over the public domain and with the increase of cattle and sheep herds, the problem of insecure title to grazing lands became more acute. In the late 1880's and early 1890's, Utah governors made frequent mention of the problem in their messages to the territorial legislatures and to the secretary of the interior. They agreed unanimously that the stock owner had to be given some kind of secure title to grazing lands, whether by sale or by lease. Governor Arthur L. Thomas's report of 1890, urging the secretary of the interior to work for a federal law giving a more secure title, summarized the shortcomings of the uncontrolled competition which ruled the range:
The violent conflicts which the Utah governors repeatedly predicted occurred during the late 1880's and on into the twentieth century. A terse news entry of 1888 warned that "the San Juan River country, even down beyond the Utah line, is getting so many cattle that serious fears are expressed of short picking for them, and trouble among the stockmen is looked for." Instances of violence were abundant, although it should be noted that they usually occurred on the unsettled periphery of the territory. An incident on the Utah-Nevada border illustrates the difficulty into which the lack of a secure title to grazing grounds put a Utah stock owner. Sheep herded by James Sharp and owned by his father of Vernon, Utah, had customarily summered in the Grouse Creek area of northwestern Utah. Not far to the north across the border in Idaho, the cattle of a Nevada cattle company also summered. This company, the S & H Ranch, had set deadlines on the borders of its range, which, because of its reputation for violence, James Sharp had carefully respected. In the summer of 1898 Sharp drove his sheep onto his accustomed range to discover that S & H cowboys had crossed their own deadlines and had occupied his range with a large herd of steers. To convince Sharp that they meant to appropriate his grazing grounds, the cowboys scattered his sheep herd. Desperate because he had no other range on which to take his sheep, Sharp drove them into Idaho across the deadlines of the S & H range. An outlaw from Oregon, whom Sharp had befriended earlier, helped Sharp hold his sheep on these forbidden grounds. The outlaw and a handful of companions threatened the cowboys of the S & H company with gunplay if they molested Sharp's herd. Although Sharp occupied the S & H range throughout the summer, he never afterward returned to this or to the Grouse Creek range.
This incident illustrates a further complication in the conflict over public range in Utah. Like other western states and territories, Utah was seized with the idea that cattle and horses could not graze on lands where sheep grazed. A number of bills presented to the Utah Legislature attempted to regulate the supposed antipathy between cattle and sheep. A bill of 1888 sought to reconcile the conflict by establishing legal title to range areas on basis of prior use. Asserting that "it is a well attested and settled fact that horses and cattle cannot be grazed, reared or kept on the range, pasturage, and waters occupied or used by sheep," this bill proposed to secure both cattlemen and sheepmen against the encroachment of each other upon range which they had customarily used. This attempt to regulate the public domain failed to become law.
It is significant that the Utah Legislature attempted to reconcile differences rather than to discriminate in favor of either the cattle or the sheep interests. Unfortunately, its good intentions failed to prevent conflict. Many of the incidents of range violence in Utah, like the Sharp episode, involved cattlemen and sheepmen. The basis of the conflict, of course, was the public domain. The open public range thus became in Utah, as in other western territories and states, a source of violence and injustice.
BRANDING AND HERDING LAWS
A more extensive law grew up in Utah Territory to provide for the identification of ownership of livestock, for the recovery of lost animals, and for the prevention and detection of theft. Because it was indubitably the property of the Utah resident, the cow, unlike the land it grazed on, could be carefully controlled by legislation. One course by which early Utah Legislatures attempted to preserve animals to their proper owners was the regulation of professional herdsmen. Because Indians and thieves made loose ranging dangerous and because the Mormon mode of settlement induced cooperative effort, herdsmen were as necessary to the early cattle industry as to the sheep interest.
By the herding act of 1851, the State of Deseret made the herdsman responsible for all animals in his care and required that he post bonds of twice the value of the animals. He was relieved of responsibility only if the animals he herded were destroyed by means beyond his prevention. The territorial legislature soon modified this law by the herding act of 1854, which required that the herdsman be licensed by the court of the county where he intended to herd. This act required the posting of bonds and enjoined all drivers of livestock, whatever their professional status, to prevent the mingling of local animals with their own herd. The effectiveness of this law is uncertain. Court records at least show that during the 20 years of its duration, many persons applied for herding licenses and posted bonds. The animals-at-large act of 1874, which repealed the herding act of 1854, retained only one provision of the older law, that requiring all herders to prevent local animals from mingling with their herds. This provision remained in Utah law through and beyond the territorial period.
Of more lasting importance in the identification and preservation of ownership of animals was the development of the brand law. Marks and brands were a kind of certificate of ownership cut and burned into the hide of a cow or horse with a degree of permanence. Because the custom of branding and marking was imported into Utah with the pioneer Mormons, a reasonably well-developed brand law appeared in an ordinance passed in 1849 by the Salt Lake High Council. This ordinance created an office for recording brands and marks. The recorder was to keep a permanent and public record in which he would record marks and brands and the names and addresses of their owners. In the design of the brands, the recorder was to "consult the convenience" of the applicant. This provision permitted the unusual and flamboyant brand designs that were the affection of cattlemen in all western states and territories. This ordinance also required that upon the sale of an animal, its former owner reverse his brand. Reversal of a brand was an early equivalent of a bill of sale. When the new owner of an animal placed his own brand upon it, the reversed brand of the former owner stood as testimony that the new owner had received legitimate title. By this ordinance, altering brands and branding cattle not one's own were classified as a felony.
This early act contained the essentials of Utah brand law. The first territorial brand act altered it chiefly in details. This act of 1852 expanded the office of brand recorder from a single bureau at the seat of government into a main office with auxiliary offices in the counties. The record of marks and brands was to be open to public inspection in all offices. The crime of altering brands or misbranding remained a felony. The recorder was still required to "consult the convenience" of the applicant in the design of a brand, although a condition was now added that the applicant must pay for the casting of an unusual design required in printing the brand book. A significant detail was added to the provision requiring the reversal of brands at the sale of an animal. Pound keepers and county officers were required to examine all herds of animals passing through their counties. If they found animals bearing neither the brand of a present owner nor the reversed brand of a former owner, they were to seize the animals as stolen property. If a seller had failed to reverse the brand on animals legitimately sold, he was liable for damages and expenses arising from the seizure.
The brand law was revised again in 1866. It retained the main features of the earlier laws, being designed chiefly to alter administrative details. Otherwise, its chief alterations were its failure to reinstate the reversal of brands as a sign of changed ownership and its reduction of the crime of altering brands from a felony to a misdemeanor. Thus, 1866 became the year in which the reversal of brands passed out of Utah law books if not out of practical use. It also inaugurated a 10-year period in which the illegal use of brands was to be a misdemeanor rather than a felony.
Utah brand law thus took its essential form early in the territorial period. No law in the territorial period made branding and marking universally mandatory. The herding act of 1854 required that persons driving stock into the territory brand and mark them immediately and record their brand. The various pound and stray acts soon put pressure upon stockmen to maintain a brand, for they permitted the state to confiscate an unbranded animal running at large. Finally, the branding and herding act of 1886 required that no unbranded animals were to be either sold or slaughtered. Utah law in effect gradually made branding and marking difficult to avoid.
Another group of laws developed to aid in establishing the ownership of livestock and in preventing and detecting theft. These laws prohibited driving off animals without their owner's permission, required that the sale and slaughter of animals be publicly recorded, and established measures for enforcing livestock laws beyond the means of law ordinarily operating in the counties.
These laws were late in developing. Except for the herding and branding laws already reviewed, only two acts were specifically designed to deal with theft before 1886. The earliest was the ordinance of the Salt Lake High Council in 1849 which forbade anyone to ride or drive horses, mules, or cattle from their accustomed range without their owner's permission. This law lapsed with the advent of the territory. The other early act was the slaughtering act of 1865 which required that butchers and professional slaughterers be licensed by county courts and keep a written record listing the numbers, age, size, color, and brands of all cattle slaughtered; the names of persons from whom they were obtained; and the time of slaughter. This record was to be open to public inspection.
The far reaching branding and herding act of 1886 was prefaced by a decade of increased theft of livestock, although references to cattle and horse theft are by no means scarce before 1876. Governor Cumming reported to the legislature in 1860 that the "northern part of the Territory is infested by bands of cattle thieves, who commit depredations upon the ranges and dispose of their plunder in the vicinity of the military reserves." The journals of early livestock owners like John Bennion are dotted with references to cattle and horse theft. But references to theft become much more numerous in the late 1870's and early 1880's Governor George W. Emery pointed out to the legislature in 1878 that one of the great risks of the Utah stock industry was "the men who drive out of Utah annually large numbers of stolen cattle and horses." A news item of 1882 reported that Kane County was "overrun with cattle and horse thieves" who appeared to have grouped into an organized band. A petition to the Millard County Court in 1884 represented "the great amount of cattle and horse thieving in the County" and asked county aid in combatting it.
Especially interesting are two petitions sent by county sheriffs to the territorial legislature in 1884 asking reimbursement for funds and time spent in pursuing stock thieves. Anson Call, sheriff of Rich County, reminded the legislature that the $500 reward offered by the Wyoming Livestock Association pushed thieves over into the safer operating grounds of the northern Utah ranges. John W. Turner, sheriff of Utah County, asked reimbursement for a month's journey into Colorado in pursuit of thieves who had driven about 200 head of cattle and 60 or 70 horses from Emery and Sanpete counties.
Further evidence of increased cattle theft was the formation in Kane County in April 1883 of the Southern Utah Stock Protective Association, probably the earliest of such organizations in Utah. One of the main objects of this association was the "protection of the interests of the stock owners of Southern Utah and Northern Arizona from the raids of Cattle thieves and other unprincipled persons who may seek to destroy, or injure the stock interests in the region of county aforesaid ....."
The legislature responded to the mounting evidence of stock theft by passing in 1886 the most protective act of the territorial period. By the provisions of the herding and branding act of 1886, the herdsman frequently had to examine his herd and drive out animals not belonging to him. The theft of cattle, horses, sheep, goats, mules, asses, or swine from owners known or unknown and the knowing purchase of such stolen animals were made a felony punishable by up to 10 years' imprisonment and by a fine of up to $5,000. To control the sale of animals, this act required that a written bill of sale be delivered with both living animals and the hides of slaughtered beasts. First purchasers of hides were required to keep a written record of the sellers of the hides. Only an owner or his agent was permitted to remove the hide from animals found dead. Professional slaughterers were required, as in the butcher's act of 1865, to keep a written record of all animals killed. Even nonprofessional, occasional slaughterers were required to exhibit the hide of an animal at the time and place where its meat was placed on sale. Further control over slaughtered cattle was authorized in the establishment of precinct pound keepers as inspectors who had to inspect and issue certificates for all cattle about to be slaughtered. These inspectors were also to inspect and issue certificates for cattle shipped on any railroad at night. In addition to such inspectors, county courts were authorized to appoint and pay for detectives to discover violations of the stock laws. They were also authorized to offer and pay rewards for the apprehension of thieves. Money for hiring detectives and paying rewards was provided for in a sister act. The pound and stray act of 1886 ordered that funds from the sale of stray and forfeited animals should go into a separate "Live Stock Fund" under the control of county courts.
County court records show that citizens and officials made immediate use of the acts of 1886. The court at Parowan, for example, appointed four detectives for Iron County in December 1886. It is interesting to note that the Southern Utah Stock Protective Association was made the court's agent in Kane County, much as the Wyoming Livestock Association was the agent of the Wyoming Legislature for some years. Kane County provided expense payments for the association from the Live Stock Fund in 1889. In 1890 the association was appointed "a Detective to detect any violation of the Stock laws" in Kane County.
How effective the stock laws of 1886 were is uncertain. For reasons no longer apparent, they lasted only four years. An act of 1890 dropped entirely from the law the provisions for a written bill of sale, for controls over professional slaughterers, and for the office of cattle inspector. The status and punishment of animal theft were not defined at all in the act of 1890. Other provisions were changed, but retained their essential form The provision prohibiting the shipping of uninspected cattle by railroad at night was changed into a prohibition of loading cattle at night under any circumstances. Nonprofessional slaughterers were now required to display hides "in a conspicuous place" for 20 days after killing. The provision permitting only owners or their agents to remove hides from animals found dead was retained. County courts could still offer rewards and pay detectives from county funds, although there was no more mention of the special Live Stock Fund. From the highly protective law of 1886, then, these provisions survived to and past the end of the territorial period.
FENCING AND STRAY LAWS
A third body of livestock law dealt with fences, animal trespass, strays, and pounds. Pounds were necessary for the distraint of two classes of animals : strays — animals without an owner — and trespassing animals forfeited because their owner refused to pay their damages to property. The latter class of animals was determined by the Utah fence acts. Where a fence law was in force, animal owners were liable for damages only if their animals broke through a legal fence. Where a no-fence law was in force, animal owners were liable for damages whether or not the damaged property was protected by a fence.
The earliest acts were in effect no-fence laws. An ordinance of the Salt Lake High Council in 1848 made it a trespass for stock to run "upon the wheat land, or be driven on the road passing through it." A year later the council expanded this ruling by requiring that residents of the Salt Lake Valley "keep all kinds of stock off the farming land, and city lots." The State of Deseret, however, placed the burden of protecting crops upon the farmer. By the inclosure act of 1851, agricultural lands were to be inclosed by a fence sufficient to keep out "all kinds of peaceable animals." For the following 14 years, farmers had to prove that a legal fence had been broken through in order to hold trespassing animals for damages.
It was inevitable that as the agricultural interest became distinct from and stronger than the livestock interest, farmers should demand a no-fence law. In a letter to a newspaper in 1880, a truculent farmer asked
Such an attitude undoubtedly inspired the inclosure act of 1865. The chief clause of this act established a no-fence law, making the owners of livestock doing damage to property liable "whether said premises are protected by fence or not." However, this act also provided means for rendering the main clause inoperative by local option. If a county court considered a given portion of its county better suited to grazing than to farming, it could declare the no-fence clause inoperative. Similarly, residents of an entire county could choose by a two-thirds vote to render it inoperative. In counties and parts of counties which thus rejected the no-fence law, the farmer was still required to fence his crops with a legal fence in order to hold livestock owners liable for damages to those crops.
There was some suspicion that unscrupulous property owners might use the no-fence law not as a rightful protection for their crops but as a means of profiting from collection of damages. The writer of another letter to a newspaper asked, "Will not a man be justified in leaving his stacks in an exposed condition, and driving all stock to the stray pound that would get caught in what I would style a trap set for them?" To prevent abuse of the no-fence law, the legislature passed the fencing act of 1880. This act, made slightly more inclusive in 1882, required that fences be placed about "orchards, stackyards, gathered crops, and town and city lots." Owners failing to do so were to lose damage rights upon trespassing animals.
This was the essential Utah fence law through and beyond the territorial period. In general, livestock owners were liable for damage made by their animals whether the damaged property was fenced or not. By local option, however, counties and parts of counties could choose to fence farms and let animals run at large. In all cases, orchards, stackyards, and city lots were to be fenced.
The inclosure acts determined the status of one class of animals held in the pounds. The pound laws defined the status of the other class, the strays. The pound laws did much else, but were so complex that little can be said of them here. Up to and including 1896 there were eight major revisions of the original pound law. These acts enacted and repealed dozens of devices for the organization of the pound system, for the distraint of animals, for the appraisal of damages, for making known to owners the impounding of their animals, and for advertising and conducting sales.
The bewildering complexity of these experiments in pound law may be briefly seen in the provisions for establishing pounds and electing poundkeepers. The pound act of 1851 provided for a poundkeeper and a pound in each precinct of each county. Pounds were not quickly established in all precincts, however, for the trespass act of 1865 turned much responsibility for the distraint and holding of trespassing animals over to the endamaged farmer in precincts where there was no pound. In 1866 the legislature repealed the provision for the private distraint of animals and not only authorized but required that pounds be established in each precinct. This act also centralized the pound system by providing for a central county pound to which precinct poundkeepers had to forward for sale all strays and forfeited animals. For reasons now obscure, an act of 1869 repealed the pound law entirely, leaving Utah for three years without any pound system whatsoever. The pound act of 1872 re-established the pound system but altered its centralized structure by providing for four central pounds in each county, to the nearest of which precinct poundkeepers could forward animals for sale. More than a decade later, the pound act of 1886 decentralized the pound system by abolishing district pounds and by returning to precinct poundkeepers the right to sell strays and forfeited animals. The pound act of 1890 eviscerated the system by repealing much of the existing pound law and, without providing anew for precinct pounds, by requiring that constables take over the duties of precinct poundkeepers. The pound act of 1892 restored precinct pounds and poundkeepers, but gave poundkeepers no right to sell distrained animals, which right had passed in 1890 to the court of the justice of the peace in each precinct. The pound act of 1894 retained precinct pounds but again abolished the office of poundkeeper, returning his duties to precinct constables. Other aspects of the pound and stray law were changed just as constantly and with the same confusion as were these provisions for pounds and poundkeepers.
Aspects of the pound law worth further consideration are the definition of strays and the disposal of funds from the sale of strays and forfeited animals. The successive pound laws gradually brought an ever more precise definition of what kind of animal could be called a stray. The pound act of 1851 defined a stray simply as an ownerless animal found doing damage within a lawful fence. By 1886 the definition had expanded considerably. Ownerless animals found doing damage to property were still strays. Two other kinds of animals had become known as strays: any unbranded animal running at large except for a sucking calf or colt and any branded animal running at large for two years the owner of which was unknown.
Funds from the sale of strays and forfeited animals went to various sources as the territorial period developed. An ordinance of the Salt Lake High Council ordered that such funds be paid into the Perpetual Emigrating Fund. Territorial laws disposed of these funds similarly until the pound act of 1865 turned them into the territorial treasury for the public schools. They continued to be used for territorial or county schools until 1886 when they were diverted into the special Live Stock Fund. The pound act of 1890 ordered that they be used as general county revenue.
From 1886 to 1890, then, Utah used the funds from the sale of strays for the enforcement of livestock laws, much as did Wyoming before and during the same period. However, in Utah the disposal of strays never passed into the hands of private citizens or a cattlemen's association as in Wyoming. From the earliest years, church and territory both looked upon strays as public property. One of the questions of the catechism posed by Mormon authorities to the church membership during the Reformation of 1856-57 shows the church's attitude toward the public disposal of strays: "Have you taken up and converted any stray animal to your own use, or in any manner appropriated one to your benefit, without accounting therefor to the proper authorities?"
The county courts similarly exercised care to reserve strays for the public profit. For a time, Utah stockmen gathered their cattle from the open range by concerted action. However, it was the county courts, not a cattlemen's association as in Wyoming, which governed these roundups, or "drives," as they were called in Utah. An Iron County Court order of 1867 illustrates the inner workings of one of the drives. It ordered that notices of a drive be given in the precincts where the drive would take place and in the surrounding precincts as well. It named county selectmen who were to supervise the drive and to "deliver the cattle at the correll to the owners at one dollar per head, the balance remaining unclaimed to be turned over to the Pound Keepers at the same rates." In his message to the legislature of 1868, Governor Charles Durkee revealed that these county roundups were common:
Governor Durkee recommended that the legislature give statutory remedy to the abuses of the drive system without impairing its efficiency. No Utah Legislature gave the legal regulation that he called for. Nor is it certain how long the counties continued to call and supervise roundups. Nonetheless, these drives were important as another instrument by which the counties appropriated stray animals to the profit of the public.
From the first, Utah Legislatures recognized the importance of the livestock industry and passed acts that slowly accumulated into a large body of law. Up to the 1870's, territorial and county governments exercised a fairly careful control over the livestock industry. They supervised roundups and appropriated strays to the public use. They regulated the disposition of the public domain as if it were their own. This control undoubtedly had the merit of reducing the conflict that later plagued Utah in the kind if not the degree that troubled surrounding territories. Utah law arbitrated fairly between livestock and agricultural interests. The nofence law favored the farmer, but regions predominantly suited for grazing could elect to fence farms and let livestock run free. There was no discrimination against either the sheep or cattle industry in favor of the other. Finally, the laws of the 1880's, establishing stringent control over slaughter, sale, and shipment of animals and providing special funds for prevention of theft, suggest a growing likeness between the Utah stock industry and that of surrounding territories and states.
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