42 



Canadian Forestry Journal. 



port annually to Congress about De- 

 cember 1st on the operations of the 

 preceding fiscal year. The specific 

 provisions of the Act as regards the 

 Secretary of Agriculture and the 

 Geological Survey, together with 

 provisions for reservation of min- 

 erals and timber to the original 

 owners of purchased lands, and also 

 provisions for homestead entries on 

 small tracts suitable for agricultural 

 purposes may be quoted as follows: 



Sec. 6. That the Secretary of Ag- 

 ' riculture is hereby authorized and 

 directed to locate, examine and re- 

 commend for purchase such lands as 

 in his judgment may be necessary 

 to the regulation of the flow of navi- 

 gable streams, and to report to the 

 National Forest Reservation Com- 

 mission the results of such examina- 

 tions : Provided, that before any 

 lands are purchased by the National 

 Forest Reservation Commission said 

 lands shall be examined by the Geo- 

 logical Survey and a report made 

 to the Secretary of Agriculture, 

 showing that the control of such 

 lands will promote or protect the 

 navigation of streams on whose 

 watersheds they lie. 



Sec. 7. That the Secretary of Ag- 

 riculture is hereby authorized to pur- 

 chase, in the name of the United 

 States, such lands as have been ap- 

 proved for purchase by the National 

 Forest Reservation Commission at 

 the price or prices fixed by said 

 commission: Provided, that no deed 

 or other instrument of conveyance 

 shall be accepted or approved by 

 the Secretary of Agriculture under 

 this Act until the lesrislature of the 

 State in which the land lies shall 

 have consented to the acquisition of 

 such land by the United States for 

 the purpose of preserving the navi- 

 gability of navigable streams. 



Sec. 8. That the Secretary of Ag- 

 riculture may do all things neces- 

 sary to secure the safe title in the 

 United States to the lands to be ac- 

 quired under this Act, but no pay- 

 ment shall be made for any such 

 lands until the title shall be satis- 

 factory to the Attorney-General and 



shall be vested in the United States. 



Sec. 9. That such acquisition may 

 in any case be conditioned upon the 

 exception and reservation to the 

 owner from whom title passes to the 

 United States of the minerals or of 

 the merchantable timber, or either 

 or any part of them, within or upon 

 such lands at the date of the con- 

 veyance, but in every case such ex- 

 ception or reservation and the time 

 within which such timber shall be 

 removed and the rules and regula- 

 tions under which the cutting and 

 removal of such timber and the min- 

 ing and removal of such minerals 

 shall be done shall be expressed in 

 the written instrument of convey- 

 ance, and thereafter the mining, 

 cutting and removal of the minerals 

 and such timber so excepted and re- 

 served shall be done only under and 

 in obedience to the rules and regu- 

 lations so expressed. 



Sec. 10. That inasmuch as small 

 areas of land chiefly valuable for 

 agriculture may of necessity or by 

 inadvertence be included in tracts 

 acquired under this Act the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture may, in his dis- 

 cretion, and he is hereby authorized, 

 upon application or otherwise, to 

 examine and ascertain the location 

 and extent of such areas as in his 

 opinion may be occupied for agri- 

 cultural purposes without injury to 

 the forests or to stream flow and 

 which are not needed for public pur- 

 poses, and may list and describe the 

 same by metes and bounds, or other- 

 wise, and offer them for sale as 

 homesteads at their true value, to be 

 fixed by him, to actual settlers, in 

 tracts not exceeding eighty acres in 

 area, under such joint rules and reg- 

 ulations as the Secretary of Agri- 

 culture and the Secretary of the In- 

 terior may prescribe ; and in case 

 of such sale the jurisdiction over 

 the lands sold shall, ipso facto, re- 

 vert to the State in which the lands 

 sold lie. And no right, title, inter- 

 est or claim in or to auy lands ac- 

 quired under this Act, or the waters 

 thereon, of the products, resources 

 or use thereof after such lands shall 



