THE STORY OF OUR PUBLIC DOMAIN 33 



that Company, about 1913, decided to hold the lands 

 permanently as a railroad forest reserve and per- 

 manent source of supply for ties, construction tim- 

 bers, etc. 



"The Government brought suit against the rail- 

 road for failure to comply with the law and recov- 

 ered possession of all the remainder of the grant, 

 which was over 2,000,000 acres, with the proviso 

 that it should sell it and reimburse the railroad at the 

 rate of $2.50 an acre. The general Land Office then 

 proceeded to classify the lands as chiefly valuable 

 for homesteading, for timber, and for water power. 

 The soil and the timber were appraised separately. 

 If the soil value of a quarter section exceeded the 

 timber value, it was classified as homestead land and 

 offered for sale to the settler direct. If the timber 

 value was the higher, the stumpage was offered for 

 sale to lumbermen with the idea of selling the cut- 

 over land to settlers later. 



"At the same time hydroelectric power sites 

 were classified and held for disposal for that pur- 

 pose. The classification of the whole area which 

 had reverted to the Government is summarized as 

 follows : 



Homestead lands 1,000,400 acres 



Timber lands 1,237,000 " 



Water-power lands 112,000 " 



2,349,400 acres 



"So far something like 450,000 acres have been 

 disposed of as homestead lands. It will be noted 



