The Placer herald., 1858-02-13
Public Lands belonging to California.

Public Lands belonging to California.
The Surveyor General estimates the total
area of California to be 99, $50 acres, Of
which one-eighteenth, the sixteenth and thir-
ty-sixth sections of each township has been
granted to the State by the General Govern
ment for school purposes This would
amount to 5,525,76o acres. In addition to
this the State is entitled to 48,os0 acres for
State University, 100000 acres for Inter-
nal Improvements, (the proceeds being
devoted to the School Fund,) e,4oo acres for
Public Buildings, and all the swamp and
overAowed lands, which are estimated at
100000 acres more, making grand total
Of ll,o7s24o acres of land belonging to
the State of California.
Vast and magnificent as this domain is,
the State has yet derived but little benefit
from it; and according to the report of the
Surveyor General, much of it is being lost
to the State by the continued failure Of the
Legislature to provide for the procuring and
disposal of the same. A large amount of
the overflowed land, undoubtedly the proper
ty of California, have already been surveyed
by the U. S. Surveyors, and returned to the
General Land Office. In Fresno county
alone 100000 acres have been thus returned,
a part of which is now offered for sale by
the General Government.
The 100000 acre. granted to the State
for Internal Improvements, the proceeds from
which the Legislature have converted into
Common School fund, is the only part of the
100000 acres about which there has been
definite Legislative action, and that action
has not been of material benefit to the State.
School land warrants for l6O or 800 acres
each, at 50 per acre, were authorized to be
sold-the holders of the warrants being en-
titled with them to locate any unclaimed or
unoccupied agricultural land in the State.
Thus far, there have been sold warrants for
23s, ,44o acres, leaving 262 $50 of the 100000
acres vet unsold. The amount realized from
tho warrants sold has been s474,sso, the in
terest Of which goes to the present support
Of the Common Schools Of the State.
Sound policy would seem to dictate that
now when the General Government is about
to commence the sale of its land at the
usual price (sl.25 per acre,) that the State
should reduce the price of her School Lands
to the same figures; and we are pleased to
observe that Mr.. Holman has introduced
bill in the Assembly for that purpose. For
the State to adhere to - per acre will stop
all sale for these lands and cause our citizens
to become purchasers from the General Gov
ernment on more favorable terms.
Of the sixteenth and thrty-sxh sections
of land for school purposes, amounting TO
100000 acres, no disposition has been
made. But for the early securement of these
and the overhowed lands, and their rapid
disposition, the Surveyor General recon-
mends the establishment of State Land
Office, and gives cogent reasons why this
should be DONE At the present time there
i. no system in regard to the surveys of the
lands located under School Warrants; nor is
it known whether they are all located There
is no concert of action on the part of County
Surveyors or the Surveyor General, or any
records Of County Surveyors that serve as a
guide for information as to lands located by
State authority. The whole land system of
which the State has control is in lamentable
confusion and demands most urgently intel
ligent and effective legislation.
After enumerating the defects of the pres
ent system regulating the State lands, or
rather the absence of any system whatever,
the Surveyor General says:
"The lands of the State, whether swamp or
over6owed, donated for internal Improvements,
for school and university purposes, or for public
buildings, should be at once segregated by the
Surveyor General, either alone. associated with
the Board Of Education, with the United States
Surveyor General. The lines of segregatian
should be run and marked where they have not
been already so run by the United States authori
ties All sections should be supported by the
needed proofs to substantiate the States claim,
and registered in detail with the maps field notes,
and records, in the Office Of the Surveyor General
of the State. Thus State land Office would be
created. of which the Surveyor General would be
the register, and the whole property of the State
being thus at once secured, and each subdivision
thereof being perfectly well known, sales could
be effected at any time as they are now in the U.
S. land Office, and all conflict of title or claim
avoided. Besides. the surveys thus being made,
and the lands segregated and registered, the pur-
chaser from the State would be relieved from a
cost of from fifty to one hundred and fifty dollars,
as is now the case. and his whole expense for a
title need not exceed ten or fifteen dollars. The
expense of this work would be paid out of the
sales of the lands themselves, and instead of bur-
dening either the State Treasury or the citizen
purchaser the latter would be relieved and the |