478 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



Yolving rates on timber; a charge of obtaining a railroad ticket 

 from the Forest Service under pretense of going to assist in fighting 

 forest fires, defendant pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 10 days 

 in jail ; suit to cancel a right of way ; suit to cancel patent to a min- 

 eral claim in which demurrer to the bill was sustained; a forest 

 ranger was bound over for trial by the State court on a technical 

 charge of murder, resulting from shooting while assisting a State 

 ^cer in making an arrest for felony, the grand jury failed to 

 indict; on the charge of personating a forest officer, the defendant 

 was acquitted; in a prosecution for criminal libel defendant was 

 found guilty and sentence is now^ pending ; on a charge of larceny of 

 Government proj)erty defendant was found guilty and fined $25 ; on 

 a charge of bribery the case was dropped for lack of evidence ; break- 

 ing into a ranger station, defendant found not guilty; a suit to 

 cancel a mineral patent, decision by the United States district court 

 in favor of the defendant was affirmed by the Circuit Court of 

 Appeals; one suit for the condemnation of lands; five cases involv- 

 ing water rights; one action for breach of timber sale contract; in- 

 junction suit to termmate an illegal inclosure; for killing a forest 

 ranger while attempting to make an arrest of one Archuletto, who 

 was evading military service, Archuretto was given n life sentence, 

 and a companion, Martinez, was sentenced to 15 years. 



FORESTRY COURT DECISIONS OF INTEREST. 



. In Caldwell & Dunwody v. United States, the Supreme Court, on 

 May 10, 1919, held that the plaintiffs were not entitled to recover 

 from the United States the proceeds of the sale of the " tie slash '* or 

 tops of trees the trunks of which had been used in making ties for 

 the Denver, iS'orthwestern & Pacific Railway Co. Plaintiffs had 

 contracted to furnish ties to the railroad, which had the right under 

 the act of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. 482), to cut timber for railroad 

 purposes from the public lands adjacent to its road, and had been 

 advised by the chief of the field division of the General Land Office 

 in whose district the land was located that they might sell the tie 

 slash. When the lands were included on March 7, 1907, within the 

 Medicine Bow National Forest, the officers of the forest service took 

 possession of and sold tie slash, permitting the plaintiffs to take only 

 the poles they had already cut and the slash within the ^' fire guard " 

 200 feet wide for a distance of 2 miles along the road. Plaintiffs 

 sought to recover the money received from the sale of this tie slash. 

 The court held that under the act of 1875 the railroad company was 

 entitled to timber for construction purposes only and not as a means 

 of business or profit, and that plaintiffs were not entitled to the bene- 

 fits of the act of March 3, 1891 (36 Stat- 1095, 1099), permitting the 

 cutting of timber from the public lands for agricultural, mining, 

 manufacturing, and domestic purposes, because of the express provi- 

 sion that nothing in that act shall operate to enlarge the rights of any 

 railroad company. 



In Union Land & Stock Co. v. United States, 257 Fed., 635, the 

 Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, on May 9, 1919, 

 held that suit may be maintained without a special act of Congress 

 for the forfeiture"^ of a grant of any irrigation right of way under 

 the act of 189L 



