8 PtTBLIO LANDS COMMISSION. 



a conspicuous place on the land embraced in such plat during the period 

 prescribed for the publication of his notice of intention to offer proof, 

 and that a copy of such plat and field notes shall also be kept posted in 

 the office of the register of the land office for the land district in which 

 such lands are situated for a like period; and further, that any agri- 

 cultural lands within forest reserves may, at the discretion of the Sec- 

 retary, be surveyed by metes and bounds, but that no lands entered 

 under these provisions shall be patented under the commutation pro- 

 visions of the homestead laws or be exchanged for other public lands. 



To open the reserves to homestead entry without restriction would 

 be in effect to abolish them. We therefore recommend tbat the agri- 

 cultural character of the lands should be officially ascertained, as nas 

 been the habit hitherto in the case of agricultural and mineral lands. 



The effect of the foregoing provisions is to give an intending set- 

 tler the right to apply for the particular agricultural land he wants 

 and sixty days' preference in entering it. Througli survey by metes 

 and bounds the settler is enabled to take the full amount of 160 acres 

 of actual agricultural land. The principal danger in the administra- 

 tion of this plan is likely to arise from the desire of others than actual 

 settlers to get possession of valuable timber lands on the plea that they 

 are agricultural in character, to cut the timber from the lands, and 

 then abandon them, to the serious injury of the interests which the 

 reserves are created to serve. 



Such an abuse would be greatly facilitated by the commutation 

 clause of tbe homestead act, whereas actual settlers on agricultural 

 lands in forest reserves would seldom or never suffer hardship from 

 the requirement of five years' residence. Agricultural lands in forest 

 reserves are not wholly on the same plane as such lands outside, 

 because their use must be subservient to the purposes for which the 

 reserves were created. Their actual occupation by permanent settlers 

 is of the first importance to this object, and shifting of ownership 

 during the first years of settlement and development would be of 

 serious injury to the reserves. We are of the opinion that to allow 

 the application of the commutation clause of the homestead act to 

 lands in the forest reserves would tend to defeat the object of the 

 opening of these lands to agricultural entry and would embarrass the 

 administration of the reserves. 



LANDS KBLEASED FEOM TEMPOEAET WITHDRAWAL. 



In making forest reserves it is usually necessary to withdraw tem- 

 porarily, pending segregation, considerable areas of _ land which are 

 known to contain forest growth. These temporary 'withdrawals are 

 made usually of areas larger than will ultimately be proclaimed as 

 forest reserves, in order to enable the officers of the Government to 

 ascertain what are the existing conditions and to draw the boundaries 

 with care and without interference growing out of speculative entries 

 or selections made not for settlement, but to secure certain advantages 

 which may grow out of the creation of the forest reserve. For this 

 reason temporary withdrawals are essential for the careful delimiting 

 of the forest reserve. When the limits of a forest reserve are deter- 

 mined upon, the excluded lands are restored to entry and settlement. 



Experience has shown that speculative entries or large filings of 

 so-called scrip are frequently made upon such excluded land, to the 



