Nearly 100 ranchers gathered in Farmington, N.M., last weekend to listen to Wayne Hage and his wife, former Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth-Hage, explain how the "public" land on which their cattle graze may not be "public" at all. The U.S. Court of Federal Claims found, in Hage v. United States, that the ranchers, not the federal government, may be the true owners of the property referred to as "public" land. Environmental organizations, and agencies of the federal government, have been trying to rid the West of cattle for decades. The Hage decision demonstrates that the "ownership" of the forage, water and...