28 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



built solidly upon the substantial foundation thus 

 created. It was the later eighteen hundreds that 

 gave the farmer that immense political prestige and 

 power that lasts over into the far different grouping 

 of national conditions which prevails to-day. It is 

 the far west, where farming still remains a control- 

 ling occupation, which concerns our story. 



Meantime, during the increase in national area, 

 the over-lapping ultimate purpose of land distribu- 

 tion was progressing with ever increasing rapidity. 

 Three new acts became paramount in speeding the 

 swift dissipation of our enormous wealth of land. 



One of these was the Desert Land Act of 

 March 3,1877, which allowed one person without 

 residence to take up 640 acres provided that it should 

 be reclaimed by the introduction of water within 

 three years. In 1891, this was reduced to 320 acres. 

 Nevertheless it vastly stimulated reclaiming western 

 deserts, bringing into them permanent populations. 

 Under this act, 8,648,373 acres have, to the time of 

 writing, passed into private hands. 



The second was the Timber and Stone Act of 

 June 3, 1878, which permitted any citizen to acquire 

 1 60 acres of non-agricultural and non-mineral land 

 if chiefly valuable for timber or stone. Under this, 

 13,800,030 acres of land have passed into the hands 

 of 107,358 applicants. 



The third was the Carey Act of August 18, 

 1894, granting certain states the privilege of taking 

 up to a million acres each of desert land upon con- 



