6 PUBLIC LANDS COMMISSIOM'. 



There are now lands in private ownership within existing forest 

 reserves, and similar lands must to a limited extent be included in 

 new reserves. Therefore, a method is required by which the Groy- 

 ernment may obtain control of nonagricultural holdings within 

 the boundaries of these reserves. Your Commission recommends 

 the following flexible plan : Upon the recommendation of the Secre- 

 tary of Agriculture, when the public interest so demands, the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior should be authorized, in his discretion, to accept 

 the relinquishment to the United States of any tract of land within 

 a forest reserve covered by an unperfected bona fide claim lawfully 

 initiated or by a patent, and to grant to the owner in lieu thereof a 

 tract of unappropriated, vacant, surveyed, nonniineral public land 

 in the same State or Territory and of approximately equal area 

 and value as determined by an examination, report, and specific 

 description by public surveys of both tracts, to be made on the 

 ground by officials df the Government. When exchange under these 

 conditions can not be effected, lands privately owned within forest 

 reserves should be paid for in cases where the public interest requires 

 that such lands should pass into public ownership. The Secretarj' 

 of the Interior should be authorized to take the necessary proceed- 

 ings as rapidly as the necessary funds are provided. 



TIMBER AND STONE ACT. 



The recommendations made for the repeal of the timber and stone 

 act in the previous report are renewed and emphasized. Additional 

 facts showing the destructive effect of this law have strengthened 

 the belief of your Commission that on the whole its operation is de- 

 cidedly harmful. This law has been made the vehicle for innumer- 

 able frauds, and the Government has lost and is still losing yearly 

 vast sums of money through the sale of valuable timber lands to 

 speculators, and hence indirectly to large corporations, at a price far 

 below their actual value. From the passage of the act, June 3, 1878, 

 to June 30, 1904, 55,372 claims for 7,596,078 acres of timber land 

 were patented under its provisions, and on last date 7,644 claims for 

 1,108,380 acres were pending. Many transfers of land patented 

 under this law are made immediately upon completion of title, 

 often on the same day, to individuals and companies. In this way 

 a monopoly of the timber supplies of the public-land States is being 

 created by systematic collusion. Under the existing rules, and prac- 

 tices of the courts it is difficult to prove this collusion, except in cases 

 of open fraud, and it is therefore practically impossible to secure 

 conviction. Furthermore, under bona fide compliance with the ac- 

 tual provisions of the law the effect is almost equally bad. The law 

 itself is seriously defective. 



It has been urged in behalf of this act that it enables poor men to 

 enjoy the bounty of the Government by obtaining tracts of timber 

 which they can afterwards sell with advantage. A careful study 

 seems to show, on the contrary, that the original entrymen rarely 

 realize more than ordinary wages for the time spent in making the 

 entry and completing the transfer. The corporations which ulti- 

 mately secure title unusually absorb by far the greater part of the 

 profit. 



In addition to the direct loss to the Government from the sale of 

 the lands far below their real value, timber lands which should have 



