90 FOREST commissioni;r s report. 



4, Lands bargained by Massachusetts, to be conveyed upon 

 condition of payment, that State retaining the fee. 



Of this first class there are, in round numbers, 1,000,000 

 acres; of the second, 240,000 acres; of the third, 1,500,000 

 acres; and about 450,000 acres of the fourth class." 



From i860 to 1867 inclusive Maine disposed of lands by 

 grants and sales as follows: 



Year. Acres. 



i860 94>449 



1861 69,875 



1862 75,315 



1863 207,620 



1864 84,299 



1865 88,760 



1866 148,015 



1867 175786 



Total 944,1 19 acres 



The legislature by an act approved March 4, 1868, set aside 

 ten townships of land, comprising 242,366 acres, which were 

 reserved for the common schools, this made the total of lands 

 alienated and including i860, 1,186,485 acres. 



Gift to European and North American Railway. 



In 1868 Maine had about one million acres of public lands. 

 In that year the legislature voted a most munificent gift to the 

 European and North American Railway, by which that com- 

 pany came into possession of 700,000 acres of the public lands, 

 practically about all that the state held of the eight million or 

 more acres which she had owned at one time and another since 

 the date of the act of separation. 



For years there had been a project under consideration of 

 the building of a railroad, to be called the European and North 

 American, to run from Bangor to the New Brunswick line. In 

 1864 the state granted to this company all the lands of the state 

 to aid in the building of a railroad from Bangor to New Bruns- 

 wick, provided the company would pay the debt then due 

 Massachusetts on these lands, which, with interest in time of 

 payment, would amount to $280,000. The lands were supposed 



