252 UNITED STATES FOREST POLICY 



would ultimately be included in reserves anyhow, and this seems a 

 reasonable guess. Lands which have been cleared and found unfit for 

 agriculture will need to be reforested, and the state of Oregon will 

 probably be willing that this should be done at Federal expense, 

 through inclusion in a national forest reserve. 



The value of timber involved here has probably been exaggerated 

 in many discussions of the matter. Government officials have estimated 

 that there is a total of some 70,000,000,000 feet of timber here; but 

 it is doubtful if anything like $50,000,000, or perhaps even $30,000,- 

 000, will ever be realized from the sale of the timber or of the lands. 

 Certainly it will be a long time before any such sum can be realized, 

 for there are vast resources of timber to the north in Washington, 

 and to the south in California, which are more accessible to the 

 market than much of this timber.^^^ 



THE NORTHERN PACIFIC LANDS 



The facts in regard to the Northern Pacific grant were somewhat 

 different from those regarding the Southern Pacific, being compli- 

 cated with the various mortgages on that road. The act of 1870, 

 authorizing the Northern Pacific to issue mortgage bonds, had pro- 

 vided that all lands not sold or subject to the mortgage, at the expira- 

 tion of five years after the completion of the entire road, should be 

 disposed of to settlers at not over $2.50 per acre; but it also pro- 

 vided that in case of foreclosure, mortgaged lands might be sold at 

 public auction, in tracts not larger than a section.^^* At the fore- 

 closure of 1875, the lands, being mostly unpatented, were not sold. 

 At the foreclosure of all later mortgages in 1896, all patented lands 

 were sold at public auction; but the new railway was reported in 

 every instance the highest bidder,^^' and in 1910, the Northern Pacific 

 still held nearly 10,000,000 acres of land, over 3,000,000 of which 

 was timbered. It had sold vast tracts to the Weyerhaeuser Timber 

 Company, 900,000 acres being thus disposed of in one block in 1900 

 at $6 per acre.'"' 



123 H. R, 14864; 64 Cong. 1 sess.: Stat. 39, 218 et seq. 



124 Stat. 16, 379. 



125 "Lumber Industry," I, 235. 



126 Ibid., 236, 237. 



