76 TRANSACTIONS OP THE 



the State, even, has not a title to one single acre, and is not able to make 

 good Iicr promises to one of the many thousands of persons who have 

 purehused of her in good faith nearly the whole amount of these grants, 

 if tiie}' were all to come forward to-mori-ow. pay into her Treasury' the 

 balances for which they have hecome severally obligated, and demand of 

 her what she has promised tliem u])on the performance of that act — a 

 title. The result is that many of the purchasers have lost confidence in 

 the promises of the State, and have ceased to hope to secure that evi- 

 dence of ownership of land they occupy, and which is so nocessury as 

 an incentive to energy, improvement, and prospei-ity. Many laboring 

 Tinder these discouragements have abandoned lands, which, under other 

 circumstances, would have been improved and cultivated, and yielding 

 not only a good competency to the owner and his family, but a handsome 

 revenue to the State. Others, from the same causes, have neglected to 

 i^aj up the interest upon the amount of purchase money left on credit, 

 and have thus legally forfeited not only all the money they have advanced, 

 but all claims of ownership to the land they attempted to purchase. The 

 District Attorneys, in rnanj- of the counties of this State in which are 

 located swamp and overflowed lands, acting under authority of law, are 

 at this time prosecuting actions of foreclosure against thousands of per- 

 sons, who, in consequence of these causes, have neglected to pay up the 

 accruing interest on their obligations given for these lands. Thus, while 

 the Slate is with one hand disposing of lands, to which she has herself 

 no title — she is at the same time, with the other hand, prosecuting her 

 citizens for the non-fulfilment of their part of the contract, and not only 

 taking from them the land which she, to say the least, unwittingly 

 induced them to purchase from her, but also causing them to forfeit all 

 the money she has received of them in advance. 



A vQvy large number of our citizens who have located school and other 

 State lands, are liable to the same prosecutions with the same results, and 

 are only saved from them by the forbearance of the officers to enforce the 

 law. While such is the unfortunate and perplexing condition of the titles 

 of the lands which have been donated to the State by the General Gov- 

 ernment, private individuals, hj application, energy, and perseverance, 

 coupled with a little good business tact, have been able to secure the 

 Government patents for large tracts of land to which they originally 

 claimed title by Spanish grants, but which the Courts have decided 

 against them. The evils connected with our land interests are becom- 

 ing a most serious source of oppression and wrong to our ])eople, and 

 should not longer be allowed to exist. If the State cannot give titles to 

 lands, we submit whether it is in o-ood faith to enforce from her citizens 

 the moneys they have been induced to promise her for them under a 

 misa])prehension of facts. Let her first obtain titles from the general 

 Government by the exercise of some of that business tact which indi- 

 viduals have brought into requision for a similar purpose, and she will 

 then find plenty of purchasers for all her lands, who will not only be 

 willing, but able to paj^ for them. 



AGRICULTURAL LANDS IN THE MINERAL DISTRICTS. 



There are within the mineral districts of California thousands of acres 

 of the most valuable agricultural lands in the world. Valuable from the 



