Forestry Notes. 151 



Congress, vigorously commended all of the above measures. The 

 Public Lands Commission (Messrs. Pinchot, Newell, and Com- 

 missioner Richards of the General Land Office, the ablest and 

 most conscientious students of the questions in the country), 

 in its report to the President, which he transmitted to Con- 

 gress with letter of approval March 7, 1904, strongly recom- 

 mends the repeal of the Timber and Stone Act and the distinct 

 modification of the Desert Land Law; it was not prepared 

 to formulate the needed reform in the commutation section of 

 the Homestead Law. It is under cover of these laws that many 

 frauds of land speculators have been attempted and fully con- 

 summated during the past five years. It has been done by 

 evading the original intent of the law in ways both legal and 

 illegal. Thousands of acres of timber land have thus passed 

 from Government control into the hands of millionaire investors 

 for a ridiculously small sum, when it was intended that only 

 quarter-sections or thereabouts should go to a single person, for 

 his own domestic and home-building purposes. To show how 

 rapidly the public lands are disappearing, and under what entries, 

 we have compiled a table from the records of the General Land 

 Office, embracing all the chief sources of loss, excepting State 

 and railroad selections. We cannot show, however, what is 

 testified to by others, — that much of this land has passed in large 

 tracts into the hands of the rich, and not into the possession 

 of the small landholder. It will be seen that during the fiscal 

 year closing June 30, 1903, nearly 23,000,000 acres of public 

 land, chiefly west of the one-hundredth meridian, and much of 

 it the timber land of the Pacific Slope, was disposed of. This 

 is more than one third the entire amount now embraced in the 

 forest reservations. 



CASH SALES OF PUBLIC LAND IN THE UNITED STATES. 



{By acreage.) 





1899. 



1900. 



190I. 



1902. 



1903. 





Acres. 



Acres. 



Acres. 



Acres. 



Acres. 



Timber and Stone Entries. 



59,019 



300,019 



396,445 



545.253 



1,765,222 



Mineral Land Entries 



39.752 



55-626 



67,036 



97,657 



97,046 



Desert Land Entries 



350,251 



590,155 



686,382 



929,230 



1,025,825 







8,478,409 



9,479,275 



14,033.245 



11,193,120 



Homestead Entries Com- 





muted to Cash 



505,472 



552,564 



716,661 



1,105,850 



2,194,991 





Total Acreage disposed of 









9,182,413 



13,453,887 



15,562,796 



19,488,535 



22,824,299 



Excess Over the Previous 







Year 



728,517 



4,271.474 



2,108,908 



3,925.739 



3,335,764 





The amount disposed of in 1898 was 8,453,896 acres, showing 

 that the greatest activity in public-land sales in recent years oc- 

 cured during the fiscal year of 1899-1900, the year when the 



