CHAPTER VII 



THE UNRESERVED TIMBER LAND SINCE THE PAS- 

 SAGE OF THE FOREST RESERVE ACT 



The act of 1891, providing for the establishment of forest reserves, 

 resulted in the separation of timber lands into two classes, reserved 

 and unreserved. The history of the reserved timber lands has been 

 traced ; and it will now be necessary to return to the consideration of 

 the unreserved public lands. This will involve, in general, an account 

 of the Timber and Stone Act and the free timber acts, with some 

 consideration of state activity in regard to forest conservation, and 

 some attention to the later developments regarding railroad land 

 grants. 



THE TIMBER AND STONE ACT ONCE MORE 



It will be remembered that the Timber and Stone Act proved a most 

 pernicious statute, and that, in response to repeated recommendations 

 for its repeal, Congress had, in 1892, merely extended its provisions 

 to all public land states.^ 



The early abuses under the act have already been described, and 

 they were not different after 1892, except that they were no longer 

 confined to the coast states. In a case brought to light near Duluth, 

 Minnesota, a certain timber speculator hired twenty-five entrymen 

 to take up lands, furnishing them with all expense money, including 

 $500 each for payment to the government. This timberman hired a 

 lawyer to instruct his entrymen as to how they should answer ques- 

 tions, and paid the latter $50 each for their services.^ In the Susan- 

 ville and Redding districts of California, a single investor, Thomas 

 B. Walker of Minneapolis, in the course of about three years, ac- 

 quired approximately 700,000 acres of the immensely valuable sugar 



1 Cross Reference, pp. 70-78. 



2 Olson vs. U. S.; 133 Fed. Rep., 1849, 1850, 1851. 



