54 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



in producing the concentration in timber ownership which character- 

 izes the present situation. Railroad grants have been far more impor- 

 tant than any of the other public land laws in their influence on timber 

 lands. 



The era of Federal land grants for railroads covered the period 

 from 1850 to 1871, and during that time the government granted a 

 total of 190,000,000 acres of land for the encouragement of railroad 

 construction — an area greater than that of France, England, Scot- 

 land, and Wales — greater than the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 

 and Michigan combined; greater than the New England and North 

 Atlantic states, with Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio 

 thrown in — almost an empire. These figures cover only Federal land 

 grants to railroads. They do not include Federal grants of about 

 9,000,000 acres for wagon roads, canals, and river improvements ; 

 nor the grants made by the state of Texas, amounting to over 

 33,000,000 acres; nor do they include the millions of acres given to 

 railroads, wagon roads, and canal companies by the individual states. 



It is true that much of the land granted was in the non-timbered 

 regions, but some of the grants traversed important timbered regions. 

 The Northern Pacific grant crossed the timber belt of western Mon- 

 tana, northern Idaho and northeastern Washington, and also the 

 great Pacific coast fir belt in western Washington. The grants later 

 controlled by the Southern Pacific, before their forfeiture in 1915, 

 swept through the Pacific coast fir and pine belts from Portland 

 southward to Sacramento. The Atlantic and Pacific grant in northern 

 Arizona and New Mexico included considerable areas of western pine ; 

 and the Union Pacific had smaller timbered areas in Wyoming, Colo- 

 rado, and Utah. The grants in Michigan from about the forty- 

 third parallel northward were in the white pine belt. So, also, were 

 many of the grants in Wisconsin, and in the northern and north- 

 eastern part of Minnesota, covering perhaps a third of the granted 

 area in that state. In the southern yellow pine belt were all the grants 

 in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida, and most of those in Arkan- 

 sas and Alabama. A few of the grants were in hardwood regions.^" 



The importance of the railroad grants as a means of timber land 

 alienation was augmented by the passage of the Indemnity Act of 



90 "Lumber Industry," I, Ch. VI. 



