OUR NATIONAL ESTATE 7 



Other sources of national income developed, 

 and, during the thirties, land was perceived to pos- 

 sess higher and very different values in the national 

 economy than merely a source of cash income. Ag- 

 riculture assumed growing importance in the out- 

 look of the future. Population was needed, and set- 

 tlement became recognized as sufficient compensation 

 for award of land. The General Land Office was 

 reorganized to meet these ideas in 1836, and in 1849 

 was transferred to the Interior Department, where 

 later it became the government's principal agency in 

 the swift development of the West. Its operations 

 broadened and became exceedingly complicated, in- 

 cluding extensive surveys, sales, grants, and the ex- 

 ercise of judicial powers in the settlement of private 

 claims. In 1862 the homestead system was adopted, 

 and thereafter lands have been awarded on condi- 

 tion of citizenship and occupation. 



It will be seen that during these early decades 

 the Public Domain increased enormously faster than 

 it could possibly be lessened by sales and homestead- 

 ing. Even the tremendously rapid development of 

 the West, once it began, and the increase of home- 

 steading entries from 160 acre units in the fertile 

 prairies to square mile units in the semi-arid lands 

 west of the Rockies failed to keep pace with increase. 



But with national growth came new needs 

 which, while not decreasing the nation's gross hold- 

 ings, built up new land classifications at expense of 

 the Public Domain, which thereafter has decreased 



