ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 113 



in chancery to compel the patentee to become a trustee for 

 the benefit of the real equitable owner of the property. 

 Now, all those matters are matters of a legal nature, and 

 are controlled by the land department as a court. The 

 control of the forest reserves, taking care of timber, and 

 all that, has nothing whatever to do with a proposition 

 of this kind. 



The land department of the government has charge, ex- 

 clusive of Alaska, of 600,000,000 acres of land — a pretty 

 big farm. That includes the minerals; it includes the 

 forest reserves and the national parks ; that includes all 

 of the land in which the government of the United States 

 had and retains the original title. Now, the work in re- 

 gard to this business is divided up. We have a forestry 

 division of the land office. That forestry division has 

 nothing whatever to do with these questions of title; all 

 questions of title are disposed of in other divisions of the 

 land office. We have another division of the land office 

 that has charge of the minerals and another one that has 

 charge of patents, and so on. 



The work is all thoroughly divided, and the control of 

 the forestry today by the land office is in a separate divi- 

 sion, just as separate as though it belonged to the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, and there is no conflict, either neces- 

 sary or possible, between the settling of private rights or 

 the rights between the public and a private individual as 

 to a quarter section of land or a mine in a forest reserve 

 and the question of administering and caring for the tim- 

 ber that stands on the undisputed part of that forest re- 

 serve. We have today three different jurisdictions — the 

 geological survey, that surveys the boundaries ; the fores- 

 try division of the land office, that handles the timber and 

 does the work that is proposed to be done under this bill, 

 and, third, we have the Bureau of Forestry in the Depart- 

 ment of Agriculture, with a full and complete force capa- 



