The Guthrie daily leader. [volume] (Guthrie, Okla.) 1893-1996, 1906-10-18
CLASSIFYING OVER MILL
ION ACRES SCHOOL
LAND
DONATED TO new STATE
By Congress in the State.
hood Enabling Act

: Beginning tomorrow. Fred Wenner
secretary of the Oklahoma school land
board, will take up a monster task
the classification Of the O5O,OoO acres
of land. donated in the statehood bin
for the maintenance OF Oklahoma col
leges after statehood The greater
portion OF this land is In Beaver couu-
ty. and much OF 1t has never been
used for ether than grazing purposes
Only recently did Mr. Wenner com
plete the gungs on this land it being
necessary to visit every government
land office in the territory iu order TO
accomplish this work After it was
completed there was no land left
within this territory for homestead
purposes.
The classifying of these lands will
be done by The board OF school land
appraisers. now at work throughout
the territory appraising the value Of
lands on which rentals expire THIS
year This board is composed of
William McGnty, the Rough Rider,
G. w. Parks Of Enid. Cannon Ball"
Green of Bridgeport Jim Lockwood
OF Lincoln county, a schol land lessee,
and T. Il. Couch, of Helena. The ma
iority of them will be sent to Beaver
county. for the reason that most OF
the lands are located there.
MIR. Wenner expect to have The
classification completed and the lands
ready to lease by January l., 1907 II
win take hustling, bat he says itI
must be done on these lands in
Beaver county The herds of cattle are
grazing. and they have grazed there
since before Oklahoma was born. AS
a rule the cattlemen have used the
lands without any recognition what
ever from the government but from
July ], last when the lands passed to
the control Of the territory the cat
tlemen must pay the territory rental
for their use It is not believed that
any trouble will be experienced in
collecting this rental
when it was first made known that
the statehood bill donated 1,050O00
acres more school land to the terri
tory. there were many applicants for
leasing the lands Daily the office
mail OF Secretary Wenner was carried
in baskets the most OF II being from
would-be lessees. within the past
few months, however, the list of appii-
cations have been falling of and now
but few new ones are being received.
This is due, in great part, to the fact
that as yet the leasing board has
adopted no method of leasing the land
and could not do SO until the land
we're classified. Mr. Wenner believes
that much Of the land, now used for
grazing purposes, will be leased again
as grazing land. but gradually bring
ing IL under cultivation as agricultural
land. until all of It will eventually be
leased In quartersection tracts.
In all probability there will be some
stn bidding for the privilege Of leas
ing these lands. This is guaranteed
by the fact that if ever the school
lands are sold the preference right TO
purchase goes 10 the lessecs aud this
gives the lessee a far better chance
to own the land ne r is leased and inn
proved
Secretary Weuuer has am applica-
ton frcm a resident of Dallas Texas.
who desires to colonize party of
Terans ON a big tract OF these college
lands in Beaver county In an prob
ability the Texans win get Part of
them For several years. TOO. the ma
uonaI onicers OF the Salvation army
have been planning 10 colonize some
of the Beaver county lands, aud IL is
pointed out at this time that they now
have an opportunity TO get hold OF
them
The cattle that are ON these school
lands this autumn number way mp into
the thousands. One buyer bought mp
twenty-nine loads Of fat cattle on the
range there last week and IL is stated
ON excellent authority that ,heye are
more rat cattle there az this season
than for many years past This Is the
result of e mued rains during the
summer which made the grass mNurt
ant some of the herds there are very
large. and the grade of the cattle is
gradually improving the long horns
being displaced rapidly by hne-blooded
took
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