PUBLIC LANDS OOMMISSIOIT. » 



the past for guidance, it would be possible to enforce tbis law so that 

 its essential provisions could be complied with. More careful analy- 

 sis, however, of the operations of this act and of the practices which 

 have grown up has led your Commission strongly to the conclusion 

 that this, law should be modified in essential particulars. 



Your Commission recommended last year the repeal of the assign- 

 ment clause. This provision has been made the convenient vehicle 

 for evading the spirit of th« law and for facilitating the acquisition 

 of lands in large holdings. The law limits the amount which one 

 person or association of persons may hold, by assignment or other- 

 wise, prior to patent to 320 acres of such arid or desert lands. The 

 most common form of attempted evasion of this requirement is for 

 two or three individuals to form themselves into a corporation, each 

 individual member of the corporation securing, by entry or assign- 

 ment, 320 acres of such lands and the corporation as such SSO* 

 acres. These same individuals then form another corporation under 

 an entirely different name and procure an assignment of another 320 

 acres, and this process is continued indefinitely. 



The General Land Office has within the past year endeavored to 

 put a stop to this practice by holding that a corporation or associa- 

 tion of persons is not qualified to receive a desert-land entry by 

 assignment where its individual members, either singly or in the 

 aggregate, are holding 320 acres of such arid or desert lands. This 

 ruling, if enforced, will tend to lessen the evils resulting from large 

 holdings prior to patent, but it is not deemed possible to secure ade- 

 quate control of this question unless the law prohibits assignments 

 of desert-land entries. By repealing that provision of the law and 

 requiring the claimant to show that he has made the entry for his 

 own use and benefit and not for the benefit of any other person or 

 corporation and that he has made no agreement by which the title 

 shall inure to any other person or corporation the evils incident to 

 large holdings of such lands under the sanction of law will be materi- 

 ally lessened. 



It is a str iking fact that these large holdings of desert land are 

 not reclaimed and devoted to their best use. Three hundred and 

 twenty acres of irrigable land is entirely too much for economical 

 handling by one person.. On the other hand,, inspection shows that 

 in the same locality and under the same climatic conditions the home- 

 stead entries, where not commuted, are reclaimed and utilized. 



The desert-land act as it stands upon the statute books appears to 

 have many features which commend it, but, as before state'd, the 

 practices governing it have largely nullified its good features, and 

 the resulting evils can not be fully overcome without legislation. 



The area of the desert entry should be cut down from 320 acres to 

 not exceeding 160 acres, and discretion should be given to the Secre- 

 tary of the Interior to cut it down still further where it is apparent 

 that intensive cultivation is practicable. A farm of 320 acres, if 

 irrigated, is entirely too large for a single family, and its possession 

 simply prevents other settlers from coming into the country. Fur- 

 thermoare, it makes laimd monopoly easy and induces speculation. 



Actual living at home on the land for not less than two years should 

 be required before patent. Your Commission can not understand 

 why any settler should be given both a homestead and a desert entry, 

 either of which without the other should suffice, under the law, to 



