402 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



FORESTRY COURT DECISIONS OF INTEREST. 



In United States v. Thomas Nolan, Bob Solen, and E. A. Matson the defend- 

 ants, who were indicted on October 31, 1917, were convicted and sentenced by 

 the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington on 

 December 31 to imprisonment for one year and a day in the Federal penitentiary 

 at McNeil's Ishind for conspiracy to violate sections 49 and 52 of the Penal 

 Code, which prohibit, respectively, cutting or wantonly destroying timber on the 

 public lands of the United States and willfully setting fire to or leaving it un- 

 attended near such timber. The defendants, members of the I. W. W., on Aug- 

 ust 22, 1917, went to the camp of the Snow Creek Logging Co., purchasers of 

 Government timber in the Snoqualmie National Forest, where a severe fire had 

 broken out on July 14, and made such representations to the men who were 

 fighting the fire that about one-half of them quit work and left the camp on the 

 following morning, after which the fire continued burning several weeks and 

 destroyed additional Government timber. The case has had a very beneficial 

 effect. 



In United States v. Cameron et at. the circuit court of appeals for the ninth 

 circuit, in an opinion of May 6, 1918, aflirmed the judgment of the United States 

 District Court for Arizona enjoining the defendants from occupying or conduct- 

 ing any business upon or in any manner interfering with the administration or 

 use by the Government of certain land within the Tusayan National Forest and 

 Grand Canyon National Monument, formerly embraced in what was known as 

 the Cape Horn lode-mining location, but which had been declared null and void 

 by the Secretary of the Interior upon rejecting defendants' application for 

 patent. 



In Cameron v. Bass (168 Pac, 645) the Supreme Court of Arizona affirmed 

 the action of the lower court in refusing to enjoin the defendant, a Forest Serv- 

 ice permittee, from erecting certain buildings on land within the Tusayan Na- 

 tional Forest and Grand Canyon National Monument claimed by the plaintiff 

 under the Cape Horn lode-mining location above mentioned, which upon appli- 

 cation for patent therefor had been declai-ed null and void by the Secretary of 

 the Interior. The court held that the Secretary of the Interior had jurisdiction 

 to determine whether the land was mineral, and his decision that it was non- 

 mineral is binding on the world and renders the location void ab initio in the 

 absence of fraud, accident, impositiqn, or mistake. 



In Emdgli v. Mattheios et al. the Idaho State court refused an injunction 

 sought by the plaintiff, a squatter on Government land within the Minidoka 

 National Forest, to restrain the defendants, who held grazing permits from the 

 Forest Service, from watering sheep at a spring within the squatter location, 

 the decision being based upon the fact that the squatter location was invalid 

 because it was not luade until after the land had been withdrawn for the 

 national forest. 



In United States v. Hammond Lumber Co. the United States District Court 

 for Oregon, on October 29. 1917, held that a school section (sec. 36, T. 9 S., 

 R. 5 E. ) within the Santiam National Forest was unsurveyed, notwithstand- 

 ing that the south and east township lines had been surveyed and the quarter- 

 section corners established, and that since the interior siu-vey of the township 

 had not been made prior to the forest withdrawal the defendant did not ac- 

 quire any title to the land by conveyance from the State. 



In United States v. Thomas E. Marks, involving the unlawful occupancy of 

 land within the Snoqualmie National Forest, the United States Court for the 

 Western District of Washington, on November 27, instructed the jury that the 

 defendant, a settler prior to the creation of the forest, had no right to the 

 land after service of the decision of the Secretary of the Interior denying mo- 

 tion for rehearing of a decision holding the squatter location invalid. 



In United States v. Frank C. Hunter, trustee in bankruptcy for the Elk 

 Mountain Mercantile Co., a suit to enjoin disposition of the company's assets 

 until the Government should establish priority for a claim of $22,076.46, for 

 which judgment was recovered December 21, 1916, on account of a fire tres- 

 pass on the Medicine Bow National Forest, the court, on September 14, 1917. 

 dismissed the Government's bill, holding that since the claim of the United 

 States had not been liquidated on the date (.Ian. 13, 1916) of the adjudication 

 in bankruptcy the Government was not entitled to priority of payment. 

 Priority, except as to claims for labor performed within three months which 

 are preferred under the bankruptcy act, was claimed under section 3466 of 

 the Revised Statutes, which provides that in case of insolvency debts due the 



