THE NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS 315 
I shall divide my discussion under the heads of (1) agricultural 
lands; (2) mineral lands—that is, lands containing metalliferous min- 
erals; (3) forest lands; (4) coal lands; (5) oil and gas lands; and (6) 
phosphate lands. 
I feel that it will conduce to a better understanding of the problems 
presented if I take up each class and describe, even at the risk of tedium, 
first, what has been done by the last administration and the present one 
in respect to each kind of land ; second, what laws at present govern its 
disposition ; third, what was done by the present congress in this mat- 
ter; and fourth, the statutory changes proposed in the interest of con- 
servation. 
AGRICULTURAL LANDS 
Our land laws for the entry of agricultural lands are now as follows: 
The original homestead law, with the requirements of residence and 
cultivation for five years, much more strictly enforced than ever before. 
The enlarged homestead act, applying to non-irrigable lands only, 
requiring five years’ residence and. continuous cultivation of one fourth 
of the area. 
The desert-land act, which requires on the part of the purchaser the 
ownership of a water right and thorough reclamation of the land by 
irrigation, and the payment of $1.25 per acre. 
The donation or Carey act, under which the state selects the land 
and provides for its reclamation, and the title vests in the settler who 
resides upon the land and cultivates it and pays the cost of the reclama- 
tion. 
The national reclamation homestead law, requiring five years’ resi- 
dence and cultivation by the settler on the land irrigated by the goy- 
ernment, and payment by him to the government of the cost of reclama- 
tion. 
There are other acts, but not of sufficient general importance to call 
for mention unless it is the stone and timber act, under which every 
individual, once in his lifetime, may acquire 160 acres of land, if it has 
valuable timber on it or valuable stone, by paying the price of not legs 
than $2.50 per acre fixed after examination of the stone or timber by a 
government appraiser. In times past a great deal of fraud has been 
perpetrated in the acquisition of lands under this act; but it is now 
being much more strictly enforced, and the entries made are so few in 
number that it seems to serve no useful purpose and ought to be re- 
pealed. 
The present congress passed a bill of great importance, severing the 
ownership of coal by the government in the ground from the surface 
and permitting homestead entries upon the surface of the land which, 
when perfected, give the settler the right to farm the surface, while the 
coal beneath the surface is retained in ownership by the government 
and may be disposed of by it under other laws. 
