Statement showing the number of timber-culture entries, with areas, made in each State and Territory under the timber-culture act of March 3, 1873, to June 30, 1880, inclusive.

4,791. 56

9, 642. 17 1, 954 282, 479. 07 1, 265 168, 269. 06 1, 354 185, 596. 43 1, 666 | 238, 020. 44

99

8, 563. 42

59

Total

319 50, 246. 04 5, 923 851, 225. 99 3, 652 473, 694. 21 4, 488 599, 917. 97 3, 819

524, 551. 85

Revised Statutes, section 2317, in the chapter relating to homesteads, is as follows: Every person having a homestead on the public domain, under the provisions of this chapter, who at the end of the third year of his residence thereon, shall have had under cultivation, for two years, one acre of timber, the trees thereon not being more than twelve feet apart each way, and in a good, thrifty condition, for each and every sixteen acres of such homestead, shall, upon due proof of the fact by two credible witnesses, receive his patent for such homestead.

This is also a bounty for planting timber.

REFERENCES.

Regulations General Land Office.

Public Land Commission, Preliminary Report, with Testimony, 1880. Report on the Lands of the Arid Regions of the United States, Prof. J. W. Powell, 1878, Washington, D. C., as to water supply of the arid regions.

Report upon Forestry, vols. 1 and 2, prepared under direction of the Commissioner of Agriculture, in pursuance of an act of Congress approved August 15, 1876, 1878, Franklin B. Hough; containing statistics of lumbering, laws of States and Territories on forestry, suggestions, and a vast amount of practical information on tree culture in all lands. Also, Report of State Forestry Commissioners.

Report from Committee on Public Lands, first session Forty-third Congress (H. R. 259), on cultivation of timber and the preservation of forests, by Mr. Dunnell, of Minnesota, in reference to the special message of President Grant of February 19, 1874, on the subject.

CHAPTER XXX.

DESERT LANDS.

SPECIAL AND GENERAL LEGISLATION.

The act of March 3, 1875, providing for the sale of desert lands in Lassen County, California, permitted the entry of 640 acres of land, and required that water be put upon the same by claimants, and the land paid for at the rate of $1.25 per acre, within

two years.

March 3, 1877, Congress enacted the "Desert land act," which applies to California, Oregon, Nevada, and Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, New Mexico, and Dakota. It is for the reclamation of desert lands, an entry of 640 acres being permitted, and three years are given from the date of filing in which to conduct water on the same. At time of filing application 25 cents per acre is to be paid at the district land office, and on proof of compliance with the law, final payment of $1 additional per acre can be made at any time within three years. All lands, exclusive of timber and mineral lands, which will not, without irrigation, produce some agricultural crop, are deemed and held to be desert land under this act. The determination of what may be considered such desert lands is subject to the decision and regulation of the Commissioner of the General Land Office. (See circulars of General Land Office of June 25, 1878, and September 13, 1880.

Under this act, since March 3, 1877, to June 30, 1880, there have been made 2,855 entries embracing 897,160.57 acres; the first payments received (25 cents per acre) being $223,470.72.

For estimates of areas and conditions of desert lands, see "Report on the Lands of the Arid Region of the United States," by Prof. J. W. Powell, 1878; and for details of irrigation and methods, see "Preliminary Report, with Testimony, of the United States Public Land Commission," 1880.

RESULTS OF THE ACT.

The following table gives full exhibit of totals of operations under this act:

Sales of desert lands under the act of March 3, 1877, to June 30, 1880.

Sales of desert lands under the act of March 3, 1877, &c.-Continued.

CHAPTER XXXI.

PRIVATE LAND CLAIMS.

ORIGIN AND NATURE.

Private land claims are a class of titles situated in different sections of country, now constituting a part of the Union, having their origin under the governments preceding the United States in sovereignty.

In virtue of the treaties of cession hereinbefore shown, the area of the public domain has been increased several times its original extent. This immense increase of national territory embraced numerous individual foreign titles founded on written grants or otherwise, in form, extending even to nascent claims resting upon actual settlement before change of government. The whole scope of Congressional legislation thereon shows how scrupulously this Government has made provision for fulfilling treaty stipulations and the requirements of public law, so as to secure to individuals their rights which originated under former governments. No nation has shown a higher sense of justice in this respect or a more liberal spirit. We have acknowledged and carried out the principle that, although sovereignty changes, private property is unaffected by the change, and that all claims in this relation are to be maintained sacred, including those in contract, those executory, as well as those executed. Such are the rulings of boards of commissioners for the examination of foreign titles, and the decisions of the district courts and of the Supreme Court of the United States. These courts in their rulings show how zealously private rights have been vindicated and confirmed, while the records of our Government bear evidence of the fact that multitudes of titles, derived under the former sovereignties of Great Britain, France, Spain, and Mexico, depending for validity on their colonial laws (in some very few instances they were direct from the Crown, although usually made through the instrumentality of the governors-general, intendants, subdelegates, and military commandants), have been secured to the lawful owners.

Turning to the national map it will be seen that these private claims or grants, marking the progress of early explorations and settlements on this continent, begin on the northern shores of the Michigan lower peninsula, come down to the old French settlement at and near Detroit, pass over to Green Bay and Prairie du Chien in Wisconsin, enter into Indiana at the old Vincennes post, down the eastern side of the Mississippi, and in Illinois reach Peoria, Prairie du Rocher, and the Kaskaskias, there resting on ancient British and French grants, and all within the limits of the United States according to the treaty of limits in 1783. Thence such ancient claims are found in descending the Mississippi under other forms of grant and granting officers, to the Gulf of Mexico, extending into the southern portions of Mississippi and Alabama, and scattering all over both East and West Florida, crossing the Mississippi and following the shores of the Gulf, they are found thickly scattered over Louisiana, existing in Arkansas, and in great numbers in Missouri.

In those localities south of the thirty-first degree, east of the Mississippi, to the Perdido, and those west of the Mississippi to the present State of Missouri, inclusive,