io OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



States. Beginning with Maine, inclusive, they would 

 stretch westward to the Mississippi River, and 

 southward from the Canadian boundary to the 

 southern boundaries of Tennessee and South Caro- 

 lina with some to spare. For still clearer concep- 

 tion let us name the states within this imaginary il- 

 lustrational area: Maine, New Hampshire, Ver- 

 mont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, 

 New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, 

 Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South 

 Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Il- 

 linois, Kentucky and Tennessee. 



An empire! 



Most federal land, of course, is in the far west. 

 The group called the Public Lands States are eleven 

 in number and all of them large. Two thirds of 

 Utah is in national possession. But every state in 

 the United States, and every territory and other pos- 

 session, contains Federal Lands under several dif- 

 ferent administrative organizations. 



So far as I can discover, there is no organiza- 

 tion in the United States government whose busi- 

 ness it is to collect the facts concerning Uncle Sam's 

 real estate holdings, or to value them. At current 

 land prices, their value would be enormous. But 

 combined market values, if it would be possible to 

 appraise these lands, would be absurdly below their 

 real value to the American people. It might not be 

 impossible to guess shrewdly the billions in oil and 

 metal concealed in the withdrawal areas, or compile 



