The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1903-12-18
Bio Bunch to Wolf Killers and to
Horse Thief Catchers.
State Has Been Liberal TO The Extent
of $322,342.
And All This Money in The Past
Nine Years.
The Fees for Tree Planting Are No
Small Item.
From Mondays Daily.

From Mondays Daily.
According to the data compiled in the
state treasurer's office Minnesota has
paid out in the past nine years bounties
amounting to $322,342.56.
The state pays bounties for three diff
ferent kinds of service to the COM
munity-for the determination of
wolves, the apprehension of horse thieves
and the cultivation of trees. Although
there has at all times been difference of
opinion as to the propriety of paying
a citizen for the performance of public
service, in which more often than not,
he is the person most directly benefited,
there have for number of years been
laws in this state providing for the
three classes of bounties, If farmer
kills the wolf that has been destroying
his live stock, he Is paid for the service.
If man whose horse, or whose neigh
boris horse, has been stolen is sufficiently
epterprising to locate the thief and Sc
cure information leading to a conviction,
he is rewarded handsomely for Kidding
his neighborhood of dangerous charac-
ter; and if settler in the prairie dis
tricts shows sufficient enterprise to plant
trees, he reaps an immediate benefit in
cash.
The wolf bounty laws of this state
have been many times amended, each
new law in turn being presumably better
than the one which preceded it. The
present law throws the whole state
treasury open for the payment of wolf
bounties at the rate of $3.50 for full
grown animal and 81 for each cub. This
is chapter ll3 of the General Laws of
1903. 1t fixes the bounties as stated, but
makes no limited appropriation for the
purpose Heretofore there has each year
been specific appropriation for the pay
ment of wolf bounties, and when that
was exhausted there could be no more
bounties paid that year. The law re-
pealed by the present one made the boun-
ty $40 for a full-grown wolf, and of that
amount the state paid third, while
the county paid two thirds. Other laws
have placed a higher price upon full
grown female wolf during certain months
of the year than at other times.
The present bounty for information
leading to the apprehension and convic-
ton of a horsethief is 5000, as provided
by chapter l56 of the General Laws of
1903. Prior to the enactment of this
statute of last winter the reward was
but $50 The bounties paid last year
at the rate of $50 each amounted in all
to $3.50; but, although only four and
one-half months of the present fiscal
year have elapsed, the horsethief boun-
ties paid in that time under the new law
already amount to 81 400.
Under chapter III of the Laws of
1895 the state pays bounty of $3.50 per
acre for the cultivation of trees, provid-
ing no one person shall draw bounties
upon more than ten acres for the same
period of time, or shall draw bounties for
more than six years on the SEINE area of
land. Thus a man may plant ten acres
of trees and each year for six successive
years, in case he keeps those trees alive
or replaces those which die, he may draw
$25 from the state, making a total of
$3.50 in bounties on a tenacre tract.
Having finished with one such undertake
ing, he may then begin again with anoth-
er ten-acre tract.
The average sum paid out by the
state in bounties of all three classes men
toned above for the past ten years has
been between $4,000 and $4,000 per
year. For the past nine years the figures
of each year are as follows: $36,742.02;
$22, 1877 go; $37, ISAAC; $24,3l7.34; $780,
679.67; s4557O.O6; s57,256.3l; s24,93S.ls;
$35,75653.
Contractor Richard Hughes built the