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Only one quarter section can be entered asa tree claim on each section, leaving 
the three other settlers on the three remaining quarters without any chance to be 
benefited by the law and having no stimulus to raise trees beyond what their own 
necessities suggest. The first man at the land office gets the chance of the Govern- 
ment’s liberal offer, and those who come after him get nothing. It would have 
been infinitely better for all concerned if the Congressional gift had been smallerin 
size and extended in some way to every man who settled on the public domain. To 
properly plant and cultivate 10 acres of trees has been found to be an undertaking 
that has cost the farmer more than any other method yet invented to acquire 160 
acres of Government land. The reasons will appear further along in this paper. 
The number of acres ought to be limited to5 and the farmer ought to have been 
allowed to start his trees in the nursery, and cultivate them there until 2 or 
3 years old before setting them out in the grove, and the time that they were 
growing in the nursery ought to have been allowed to count the same as if grown 
on the claim. No non-resident ought to be allowed to enter a tree claim. He has 
used it in this way: A, in Ohiovur Vermont, enters a tree claim in North Dakota. He 
breaks 5 acres the first year, according to law, crops it the second, but does not 
plant it the third, because in the 2 years that he has had a filing upon it, it has 
advanced so rapidly in price that B, of New York or Indiana, offers him around sum 
for his relinquishment, and he accordingly relinquishes his right to the claim and B 
files upon it. B does not begin where A left off, but treats the entry as an original 
purchase and has 8 years in which to break, sow, plant, and raise trees, the same 
as if A had never seen it. At the end of 2 years B finds himself with the same 
opportunity for selling out that A struck, and he sells out to C, and he obtains 
possession by the purchase of B’s relinquishment. Four years have already elapsed 
since the first entry was made by A and nota seed has been planted. Nor was it the 
intention of either A or B to raise trees at any time. They dickered in the land for 
the sole purpose of gain, and they merely took advantage of the loopholes in the 
law. 
Those who unfortunately can not sell their claims before they are required by law 
to plant with seeds, cuttings, or trees adopt the shortest and cheapest method of 
complying with the letter of the law without regard to its spirit. One man came to 
me in November to borrow money and offered the relinquishment of his tree claim as 
security for the loan. When asked if he had strictly complied with the requirements 
of the law as to tree claims he said he had; that he had plowed 5 acres the first year, 
cultivated a crop upon it the second year, and had planted it with seeds the third. 
Being questioned more closely he admitted that the tree seeds were sowed broadcast 
with an oat crop and that he had not seen the land since the oats were harvested. 
He did not know whether there was a tree on his claim or not, but he had planted 5 
acres of seeds as the law required, and could no doubt have obtained witnesses of the 
fact of other tree claimants around him who had dodged the law themselves in a similar 
manner. A large majority of the settlers in some localities are in the same boat, and 
they stand by each other. They are not intending to raise trees, but to bold the land 
until they can sell out to advantage. Many of the first filings on tree claims are sold 
to newcomers, who enter them as homesteads or preémptions. 
In Dakota, before the admission of the two States, the Territorial legislature made 
an honest effort to supplement the act of Congress to encourage the growing of trees, 
and passed a law exempting from taxation $1,000 worth of property from the assess- 
ment of any farmer who would plant and cultivate a certain amount of ground in 
trees on his homestead. Some settlers have availed themselves of the privileges of 
the law, andin the course of time it may stimulate landowners generally to plant 
trees, 
