The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1879-10-28

questions as miners farmers mill owners. stock
rasers. &C. and 50 far as can observe: the uhiver
sal feeling that the public lands should be arranged
into nve classes. with prices and Quantities ao"eo'
about as follows
emption or for homestead, 800 acres. maximum, AZ
81 70 per acre. Lands susceptible 81 irrigation for
fifty cents.
Timbered lana. $40 acres at SO so an acre.
Coal lands eighty acres at 81 So
Other mineral lands. twenty acres at $50 acre.
Arid lands. 10000 acres or more at ten cents an
acre.
Ii this system was adopted / believe it would
change within u brief period the whole condition Of
life ON the plains and III the mountains. Ranchmen
would purchase large tracts and locate permanenty
Now they are simply nomads upon the face of the
EARTH moving their herds from place to place when
neighbors come too closely to them. Their dwell
ings rude log cabins. adobe houses dugouts in
the EARTH tents. inexpensive. and for that
readily abandoned with but small loss. They would
sink deep artesian wells where surface water
exists, make permanent improvements, live other
men do and add enormously to the taxable wealth
OF the State and nation. True, big and unsuccess-
ful attempts have been made with artesian borings
but they would be tried everywhere or water would
be conveyed forty or fifty miles in pipes to water
stock Mill owners-and Ivy that term mean smelt-
ing and stamp works, as well as lumber mis-would
buy pine timber. that being the only species that
grows in this belt. instead OF taking stealing it,
they do now, from the public lands All they
want is chance to buy the timber and have
certain limit of territory the exclusive right to cut
it, and every of land susceptible of irrigation
would be utilized because the farmer could afford
build his dams and dig long and expensive bitches
if he could absolutely own GAO of land at fifty
cents an acre, but could not afford it If he owned
100 acres at 81 20 an acre.
DESERT STEAL.
On March 3. 1877, Congress passed an act known
as 1.-The Desert Land Act" 1t provides means
whereby man may take $40 OF land at twenty
five cents acre. for rrgating purposes, and after
he gets it irrigated he perfect the title by paying
81 an acre more in all 81 25 1t involves
so great an expense, however, the law and regula-
lions being stringent, that few entries have been
made under the act. 1t has been alleged, however.
that when this bill was pushed through Congress .
few indiv suals in California Nevada and Utah had,
prior it's passage taken possession OF all or nearly
all tho great river bottoms for private gain. This
charge to be sustained by the fact that nearly
all the entries made under the act are in these two
States and Territory, and were nearly all made
within few days after the passage OF the act. There
was only entry in all New Mexico and that was for
eighty This job is laughable to think Of but
doubt very profitable to its promoters.
Having served the purpose for which it enacted
it lies dead statute 1t was one OF the nestest
steals on record.
The railroad people out here have complained to
the Secretary of the Interior that large amounts OF
railroad and government lands are used by the
stock raisers without payment, their cattle and
sheep roaming at large. and suggested that the gov
eminent and the railroads conformity lease the land
to stock for period that will induce fenc-
ing and permanent improvements. Secretary Carl
Schurz gives it his opinion that the government
has business to go in with the railroads. but that
the land should be leased at a moderate price and
for reasonable length of time. This idea is hooted
out here opposed to tho fundamental prin-
ciples upon which our government Is based. A
great many old-fashioned people think that great
element OF country's strength lies in the indts
vidual proprietorship of the lands.