366 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Of the total gross area approximately 11 per cent arc State or 

 private holdings. Owing to the changes consequent upon the elimi- 

 nations of National Forest lands (often heavily alienated) made 

 late in the year a corrected table of gross and net areas of the indi- 

 vidual Forests can not now be given. 



CLAIMS AND SETTLEMENT. 



The public-land laws previously existing operated during the year 

 to reduce the area of the National Forests through the pertecting of 

 claims initiated before the Forests were created, the locating and 

 perfecting of new claims under the mining laws, and the entry of 

 lands applied for and listed with the Department of the Interior 

 under the forest homestead law of June 11, 1906. A new method of 

 passing Forest lands into private owTiership, through the allotting of 

 lands to Indians, was legalized by the act of June 25, 1910. 



The opening of lands for Forest homestead entry and the allot- 

 ment of lands to Indians is done by the Department of the Interior, 

 upon the recommendation of the Secretary of Agriculture, after an 

 examination of the land to determine its character and best use. 



The determination of questions involving the title to land in 

 National Forests is within the jurisdiction of the Department of the 

 Interior. The Forest Service aids that Department in ascertaining 

 the facts in regard to the validity or invalidity of claims. Persons 

 holding valid claims under the public-land laws or legal title to land 

 within the National Forests are free to occupy and enjoy their 

 holdings just as fully as outside of the Forest. Any use of land out- 

 side of the claims must conform to the regulations of the National 

 Forests. There is no restriction whatever to prospecting for minerals 

 or to the location and development of mineral claims in the National 

 Forests. When a mineral claim comes to patent it is examined by a 

 Forest officer, who reports the facts as he finds them concerning 

 compliance with the mineral laws by the claimant unless the land 

 is or such character that its patenting will in no w&j affect National 

 Forest interests, in wliich case no further inquiry into the facts is 

 considered necessary. If there has been compliance with the law, 

 the claim goes forward to patent without obstruction or delay by 

 the Forest Service. Over 80 per cent of the examinations of mining 

 claims and over 75 per cent of the examinations of all kinds of claims 

 were followed by reports favorable to the claimant. It is the aim 

 of the Forest Service to encourage the development of bona fide 

 mining on the National Forests, and protest to the passing of title 

 to mining claims is made only when it appears clear tliat the mining 

 laws have not been complied with, and that a proper protection of 

 National Forest interests makes protest necessary. This same 

 principle is carried out in connection with claims which were initiated 

 under other laws before the establishment of the Forest, as timber 

 and stone claims and squatter claims. 



Field examinations of unpatented claims led to reports to the 

 General Land Office concerning 4,904, as follows: 



