Number and area of entries under the homestead act, &c.--Continued.

Acres.

Entries.

Final homesteads.

Homesteads.

1876.

Final homesteads.

Number and area of entries under the homestead act, &c.—Continued.

Final homesteads.

356

FORM OF PATENT FOR HOMESTEAD.

Homestead certificate No.-. Application—.

The United States of America, to all to whom these presents shall come, greeting: whereby it appears that, pursuWhereas there has been deposited in the General Land Office of the United States a certificate of the register of the land office atant to the act of Congress approved 20th May, 1862, "to secure homesteads to actual settlers on the public domain," and the acts supplemental thereto, the claim of

has been established and duly consummated, in conformity to law, for the according to the official plat of the survey of the said land, returned to the General Land Office by the Surveyor-General. and to heirs and Now know ye, that there is, therefore, granted by the United States unto the said the tract of land above described, to have and to hold the said tract of land, with the appurtenances thereof, unto the said assigns forever, subject to any vested and accrued water rights for mining, agricultural, manufacturing, or other purposes, and rights to ditches and reservoirs used in connection with such water rights as may be recognized and acknowledged by the local customs, laws, and decisions of courts, and also subject to the right of the proprietor of a vein or lode to extract and remove his ore therefrom, should the same be President of the United States of America, found to penetrate or intersect the premises hereby granted, as provided by law. In testimony whereof, I, have caused these letters to be made patent, and the seal of the General Land Office to be hereunto affixed.

day of, in the year and of the Independence of the

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, the of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and United States the

By the President:

[SEAL.]

Recorder of the General Land Office.
Recorded, vol.—, page—.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

TIMBER AND STONE ACTS.

LEGAL PROCEDURE AND DECISIONS.

The protection of the timber on the public lands from fire and depredations has, since the origin of the Government, been a serious problem.

The original public domain, or lands embraced in the cessions by States, contained vast areas of forest lands, heavily timbered in the central and middle western portion. The lands in Illinois were the first of the prairies, which beyond the Mississippi became the plains. The first disposition and settlement laws were made for a humid and wooded country, where the agricultural purchaser's first labor was to clear the wood from the soil. The Louisiana purchase added the treeless plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains to the area of the public domain.

March 1, 1817 (amended May 15, 1820, and March 3, 1827, section 2458, R. S.), Con. gress passed the first act for the preservation of live oak and red cedar forests, and authorized the exploration and selection of such tracts as were necessary to furnish the Navy with such timber. The authority of selection was placed in the Secretary of the Navy, under the direction of the President.

February 23, 1822, Congress authorized the President to employ the Army and Navy for the protection and preservation of the live-oak and red-cedar timber of the United States in Florida. (See section 2460, R. S.)

March 2, 1831, Congress made it a felony, with penalty of fine and imprisonment, for cutting or removing timber from the public lands without due permission. (See sections 2461, 2462, 2463 and 4751, R. S.)

The Supreme Court of the United States, in United States v. E. Briggs (9 How., 351), construed this statute to authorize the protection of all timber on public lands, and punishment for trespass.

Mr. Attorney-General Nelson, August 11, 1843, also gave an opinion to the same effect. July 16, 1845, Mr. Attorney-General Mason, in an opinion, considered it the preemptor's privilege to destroy and use any trees on the tract claimed necessary to clear and inclose with a view to cultivation and the making of a home.

Under the act of March 2, 1831, for the care and custody of the timber there was established a system of agencies under the supervision of the Solicitor of the Treasury. In 1855 the management of the timber interest was transferred to the General Land Office, which employed the registers and receivers, without additional compensation, to act as timber agents. (See circular of instructions, General Land Office, December 24, 1855.)

Where trespass was committed by timber dealers, stumpage was exacted, or the timber was seized and sold, and the proceeds paid into the Treasury. Where there had been trespass through ignorance, and with no purpose of spoliation, actual entry of the land was required, with payment of costs; but, in all cases, pre-emptors and parties entering under the homestead act were protected and secured in the privilege of using trees on the land claimed, for clearing, fencing, cultivation, and construction of a house to live in; also for ordinary domestic purposes; and, if sanctioned by the head of the Department, it might be extended, under reasonable limitations, to interests under act of July 26, 1866, which conferred the right of mining, where the extension might not be beyond individual necessities, nor amount to waste or spoliation.

This continued under direction of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, under his orders, and until April 5, 1877, when special agents were employed-either detailed clerks or persons specially appointed.

Registers and receivers were instructed to seize and sell all timber found to have been cut on the public lands contrary to law and deposit the proceeds in the Treasury of the United States. They were also to report the cases to the proper district attor neys for the prosecution of the offenders under section 2461 Revised Statutes, except where, with the previously obtained approval of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, a compromise was effected in view of mitigating circumstances.

By act of April 30, 1878 (20 Stats., p. 46), an appropriation was made of $7,500 for the actual expenses of clerks detailed to investigate fraudulent land entries, trespassers on the public lands, and cases of official misconduct, with the provisos

That all moneys heretofore, and that shall hereafter be, collected for depredations upon the public lands, shall be covered into the Treasury of the United States as other moneys received from the sale of public lands: And provided further, That where wood and timbered lands in the Territories of the United States are not surveyed and offered for sale in proper subdivisions, convenient of access, no money appropriated shall be used to collect any charge for wood or timber cut on the public lands in the Territories of the United States, for the use of actual settlers in the Territories, and not for export from the Territories of the United States where the timber grew: And provided further, That if any timber cut on the public lands shall be exported from the Territories of the United States, it shall be liable to seizure by United States authority wherever found.

In the act of June 20, 1878 (20 Stats., p. 229), "to meet expenses of suppressing depredations upon timber on the public lands," an appropriation of twenty-five thousand dollars was made. This was expended, under direction of the Secretary of the Interior, by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, who appointed or detailed special agents to investigate the depredations. For a full report of the operations of these agents, and the measures taken to suppress violations of the timber acts, see reports of the Commissioner of the General Land Office for 1878, pp. 122-124, 1879 and 1880. The appropriation has been continued from year to year.

The appropriations for keeping these special agents in the field were, for the year ending June 30, 1877, $12,500; for the year ending June 30, 1879, $25,000; and for the year ending June 30, 1880, $40,000; making a total down to June 30, 1880, of $77,500 since the inauguration of the present system.

RESULTS OF SERVICES OF SPECIAL AGENTS.

During the twenty-two years from December 24, 1855, to the 5th of April, 1877, while all action as to timber depredations took place under the circular of 1855 first mentioned, the sums recovered and turned into the Treasury amounted in gross to $248,795.68. During three years and three months from April 5, 1877, to the 30th of June, 1880, the proceeds actually collected from the same source amounted to $242,376.68. The amouut for which judgment has been obtained-not yet collectedis about as much more. The proceeds of the last three years and a half have been much larger than those of the twenty-two years preceding.

CONDONING ACT.

Congress, June 15, 1880, passed a condoning act for trespassers on the public lands for acts committed prior to March 1, 1879. Persons against whom suits were pending prior to that date were to make entry of lands upon which trespass was committed, and upon presentation of the evidence of such entry, and payment of costs accrued to the proper officer, suits and proceedings to be discontinued. This act took effect March 1, 1879. Trespassers since that date will await the action of the officers under existing laws.

STONE AND TIMBER ACTS.

Jnne 3, 1878, Congress passed an act authorizing the sale of timber land unfit for cultivation in California, Oregon, Nevada, and the Territory of Washington at $2.50