100 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



March 



scrip, so-called, that is, repealing the 

 right of a man or a corporation own- 

 ing land within a forest reserve to re- 

 linquish it to the Government and se- 

 lect "in lieu thereof" an equal area of 

 any other unreserved non-mineral pub- 

 lic lands. 



The repeal of this lieu land law is 

 the first recognition by Congress of 

 the wise recommendations of the Pres- 

 ident and his Public Lands Commis- 

 sion. There are three other specific 

 reform recommendations of the Pres- 

 ident and the Commission, and these 

 will come up for action by Congress 

 at its next session. 



This is a decided step forward in 

 land law reform and does away with 

 one of the most notorious and scanda- 

 lous forms of fraud and graft under 

 the Federal land laws. Under this law 

 enormous losses have been suffered by 

 the Government, the right to select 

 these lieu lands having been transfer- 

 able and resulting in the relinquish- 

 ment during the past few years of 

 several million acres of comparatively 

 worthless railroad-grant and other 

 lands included within forest reserves, 

 and the selection in their place of equal 

 areas of the most valuable timber lands 

 in the Northwest. 



Denuded slopes not worth 50 cents 

 an acre, or bare mountain sides; ac- 

 quired under other land laws at a 

 nominal figure simply for the purpose 

 of exchange, have been relinquished 

 and lieu selections made, often worth 

 according to the highest authorities, 

 $20 and even $100 an acre. By these 

 transactions the country has lost in the 

 last few years millions of dollars. By 

 the action of Congress this form of 

 graft is now at an end. 



Defeat of Square Another point wherein 

 Mile Home- Congress followed the 



steads. recommendations of 



the Public Lands Commission was in 

 the refusal of the Senate to enact the 

 ,640-acre homestead laws for Colorado 

 and South Dakota : although the 

 House did its best to secure this square 

 mile homestead legislation. In defiance 

 of the strong adverse reports of the 



Commissioner of the General Land 

 Office, the Secretary of the Interior, 

 the Public Lands Commission, along 

 with the special message from the 

 President to Congress endorsing the 

 Commission's recommendation against 

 these bills, and of the strong protest 

 of Chairman Lacey, of the House 

 Public Lands Committee, the House 

 of Representatives passed these meas- 

 ures by a vote of nearly three to one. 



This proposed legislation was con- 

 sidered especially unwise just at this 

 time when the Department of Agricul- 

 ture is every year bringing into the 

 possibilities, of profitable cultivation 

 millions of acres of the semi-arid 

 lands, where it was proposed to apply 

 these laws, through the introduction 

 from abroad of drought resistant plants 

 and desert species of grain and fod- 

 der, and by new and improved methods 

 for farming dry lands. Moreover, the 

 Commission has worked out a plan of 

 range control and grazing permits 

 which gives the real settler all asked 

 for under the 64O-acre measures and 

 yet avoids the danger of the absorption 

 of the land into large holdings, but al- 

 lows ample time and scope for the 

 "dry farming" reclamation work of the 

 Department of Agriculture. 



"All in all." remarked a prominent 

 advocate of both irrigation and fores- 

 try, a man high in official life, "very 

 much indeed has been accomplished in 

 this Congress, the result of previous 

 hard w r ork. Now we have this report 

 of the President's Public Lands Com- 

 mission, outlining a comprehensive 

 policy for the treatment of the entire 

 irrigation, forestry, and public land 

 questions, and we can all stand to- 

 gether on this report, and I believe 

 get its provisions through the next 

 Congress. The time is ripe, the coun- 

 try is awake." 



The things to be done, mentioned in 

 the report, are the repeal of the noto- 

 rious timber and stone act with the 

 substitution of a method of stumpage 

 sale by the Government, the public 

 timber lands to remain in the Govern- 

 ment, thus insuring reforestation and 



