FOREST AND RANGE EESOUECES OF UTAH 7 



is made possible by the water that is available for irrigation. The 

 first settlers who came to Utah established their homes and began to 

 till the soil in the valleys at the foot of the higher mountain ranges 

 near the mouths of the canyon streams where water from the moun- 

 tains was readily available for their crops. The population has 

 continued to cling to these places. Over 1,000,000 acres of highly 

 productive farming land is now irrigated with water derived from 

 high mountain watersheds. (Fig. 3.) 



LAND OWNERSHIP AND CONTROL 



At the time of admission to the Union, Utah, along with a few 

 other Western States, was granted four sections out of each town- 

 ship as school lands. When Utah was admitted many of the sec- 

 tions that would have been school lands were already patented. In 

 lieu of these the Federal Government allowed land to be taken from 

 remaining public lands. The best land was thereby lost to the 

 State ; but it was possible, by consolidating the lieu lands, to obtain 

 the State land in large blocks instead of in isolated sections. 



Land and script granted to Utah has 'totaled over 7,000,000 acres, 

 as shown below. The Morrill Act allowed land for agricultural 

 colleges and gave the Utah Agricultural College 200,000 acres. The 

 University of Utah was allowed 110,000 acres, and additional grants 

 of 100,000 acres each were made for the school of mines and the 

 normal school. Smaller additional grants to the university included 

 the campus. 



The Union Pacific Railroad was allowed alternate sections for 

 20 miles on each side of its right of way with the privilege of choos- 

 ing other lands in lieu of any of these alternate sections already 

 entered. Large areas of good land were thus made available in 

 solid blocks, as lieu lands could be chosen at will on public lands. 

 Mineral lands were excluded from this grant, but timberlands were not. 



The following tabulation gives the most important alienations 

 from the Federal lands of Utah, together with withdrawn and re- 

 serve lands, up to June 30, 1929. 



1. Land and script granted to Utah for educational and other pur- 

 poses : 3 Acres 



University 156,080 



Agricultural college 200, 000 



Public buildings 64, 000 



Insane asylum 100, 000 



Deaf and dumb asylum 100,000 



Reform school 100, 000 



School of mines 100, 000 



Normal school 100, 000 



Blind asylum 100, 000 



Reservoirs— 500, 000 



Miners' hospital 50, 000 



Common schools (sec. 2, 16, 32, 36) 5,844,190 



Miners' hospital (act Feb. 20, 1929) 50,000 



Total 4 7, 464, 276 



Acres 



2. Patented under enlarged homestead act 5 930,548 



3. Patented under all homestead entries, both final and 



commuted entries (except enlarged homesteads 5 2,907,868 



3 Annual Report of Commissioner of the General Land Office, Fiscal Year, 1929. 



4 Area belonging to State (192) is about 2.800,000 acres. 



5 At close of June 30, 1929. 



