THE LAND SYSTEM NEEDED FOR THE ARID REGION. 39 
done prior to the occupancy of the lands, but can only be made pari passu 
with the adoption of a system of canals; and the people settling on these 
lands should be allowed the privilege of dividing the lands into such tracts 
as may be most available for such purposes, and they should not be hamp- 
ered with the present arbitrary system of dividing the lands into rectangular 
tracts. 
Those who are acquainted with the history of the land system of the 
eastern states, and know the difficulty of properly identifying or determin- 
ing the boundaries of many of the parcels or tracts of land into which the 
country is divided, and who appreciate the cumbrous method of describing 
such lands by metes and bounds in conveyances, may at first thought 
object to the plan of parceling lands into irregular tracts. They may fear 
that if the system of parceling the lands into townships and sections, and 
describing the same in conveyances by reference to certain great initial 
points in the surveys of the lands, is abandoned, it will lead to the uncer- 
tainties and difficulties that belonged to the old system. But the evils of 
that system did not belong to the shape into which the lands were divided. 
The lands were often not definitely and accurately parceled; actual bound- 
ary lines were not fixed on the ground and accurate plats were not made, 
and the description of the boundary lines was usually vague and uncertain. 
It matters not what the shape of tracts or parcels may be; if these parcels 
are accurately defined by surveys on the ground and plotted for record, 
none of these uncertainties will arise, and if these tracts or parcels are 
lettered or numbered on the plats, they may be very easily described in 
conveyances without entering into a long and tedious description of metes 
and bounds. , 
In most of our western towns and cities lots are accurately surveyed 
and plotted and described by number of lot, number of block, ete., ete., 
and sucha simple method should be used in conveying the pasturage lands. 
While the system of pareeling and conveying by section, township, range, 
etc., was a very great improvement on the system which previously existed, 
the much more simple method used in most of our cities and towns would 
be a still further improvement. 
The title to no tract of land should be conveyed from the Government 
