THE FORESTER. 



land was covered with valuable timber, 

 there was offered the obvious temptation 

 to occupy the claim for the five years re- 

 quired and then, on acquiring title, to cut 

 off the timber and abandon the ground, 

 which in such cases was then, or soon be- 

 came, worthless for agriculture. Where 

 such fraudulent settlement was made by 

 the dummies hired by rich lumber men or 

 railroad companies, who defrayed the entry 

 charges and paid for the settler's time and 

 trouble, the same results followed in an 

 exaggerated form. 



The great railroad grants soon followed. 

 The first of these was made by the law of 

 1 8 ^o, and its operation has been char- 

 acterized by the present commissioner of 

 the General Land Office as ' opening the 

 flood-gates." From that date the people 

 became growingly conscious of the great 

 value of the timber standing upon the 

 public domain, and of the profit which 

 might be derived, whether under law or in 



O / 



defiance of law, from its harvesting and 

 sale. In 1875 (18 Stat. L., 482) was 

 passed an act granting the right-of-way 

 through the public lands to any railroad 

 company which filed, as required, with the 

 Secretary of the Interior due proof of its 

 .mixation, etc. ; and also the right to 

 take timber for construction purposes 

 from public lands adjacent to the lines of 

 the road. With these laws the ultra-re- 

 strictive policy represented by the act of 

 iS^i, already noticed, was completely re- 

 versed. Enormous amounts of most valu- 

 able timber were donated to the railroad 

 companies, which had begun their mar- 

 vellous rise just after the Civil War, and 

 which grew during the next quarter cen- 

 tury with a rapidity difficult to realize. 



It will have been noticed that the rail- 

 roads were granted timber from adjacent 

 lands and for construction purposes. 

 Much ambiguity clung to the official and 

 judicial construction of the italicized 

 words. In some cases "construction" 

 ruled to cover the rolling-stock and 

 i-\en stations, while "adjacent" was liber- 

 ally interpreted to mean anywhere within 

 litly miles or so on both sides of the line 

 and one hundred miles beyond the termini, 

 (neat as has been the gain to the enter- 



prise and commerce of both East and West 

 from this extravagantly generous policy, 

 the enormous havoc it has played along 

 the great forest belts might well have been 

 avoided by laws more considerately 

 framed. 



Close upon the heels of the railroad 

 timber grants, came the so-called "Tim- 

 ber and Stone Act" and the "Mineral 

 Act," passed upon the same day, June 3, 

 1878. 



Their passage is well known to have 

 marked another epoch in Federal forest 

 legislation. Their effect was to open to 

 the general market all the timber on the 



o 



greater portion of the public domain lying- 

 west of the Mississippi. The " Mineral 

 Act" (20 Stat. L., 88) authorized "all 

 citizens and other persons, bonafide resi- 

 dents of the State of Colorado, or Nevada, 

 or either of the Territories of New Mexico, 

 Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, or Mon- 

 tana, and all other mineral districts of the 

 United States * * * to fell and remove, 

 for building, agriculture, mining, or other 

 domestic purposes, any timber or other 

 trees growing or being on the forest lands, 

 said lands being mineral, and not subject 

 to entry under existing laws of the United 

 States except for mineral entry * * * sub- 

 ject to such rules and regulations as the 

 Secretary of the Interior may prescribe for 

 the protection of the timber and the under- 

 growth growing upon such lands, and for 

 other purposes : 



Provided, The provisions of this act 

 shall not extend to railway corporations. 

 The words " or other domestic purposes" 

 render the scope of the privilege granted 

 almost without limit. Besides the uses to 

 which the public timber was put undei 

 color of the law, the removal of timber 

 for sale outside the State or Territory often 

 took place in violation of its obvious spirit, 

 which was to encourage settlement by re- 

 moving hardship-working restrictions upon 

 the use of timber and wood for purely 

 local needs. The ambiguity of the word 

 " mineral " in the context was responsible 

 for still further breach of that spirit. 



The " Timber and Stone Act " (20 Stat. 

 L., 89) provided for the sale of unreserved, 

 unoffered, surveyed timber lands in Cali- 



