Little Falls herald. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1889-1950, 1910-01-21
Message Transmitted to. Con.
gress by President Taft
PLEA FOR SCIENTIFIC FARMING
Urges Better Treatment Of Soil
T.. to Assure Larger Crops.

affair are ignored by President Taft
in the special conservation message
which he submitted to congress.
The president urges that congress
proceed Immediately to dispose of the
Taft-Ballinger conservation programme
without awaiting the outcome of the
congressional investigation of the Bal
unger-Pinchot dispute.
In plea for better treatment of the
soil, so as to assure larger crops and
lasting productivity, the president
places scientific farming at the head of
the list of conservation aids.
The president recommends legisla-
ton providing for the conservation Of
the public lands; the safeguarding Of
power sites along rivers in the public
domain; the validating of the with.
drawals from entry made by the Sec
rotary of the interior or under the dis
puted Supervisory power;" detailed
classification of public lands accord
ing to their use; the disposition of the
agricultural and mineral resources of
the same portions of the public lands
separately; the rapid completion Of
the reclamation projects now under
way and a $30,000,0O0 bond issue to
finish and extend these projects; the
extension of the activities of the for
est service and the carrying out of
an extensive programme of inland wa
terway improvement.
All of these matters, with the ex.
ception of the forest and inland water.
ways recommendations, the president
says, have been embodied in series
of bills prepared by Secretary of the
Interior Ballinger. The bills are now
awaiting introduction in congress.
In considering the general question
Of public land, the president says:
Public Domain Depleted.
I'm 1860 we had a public domain of
1,055, 911 ,288 acres. We now have 49,
354,081 acres, confined largely to the
mountain ranges and the arid and
semi-arid plains. We have, in addi-
ton, 368,035,475 acres of land in
Alaska.
"The principal land statutes were
enacted more than a quarter of a cen.
fury ago. The homestead act, the pre-
emption and timber culture act, the
coal land and the mining acts were
among these. The rapid disposition
of the public lands under the early
statutes, and the lax methods of dis
tribution prevailing, due: I think, to
the belief that these lands should
rapidly pass into private ownership,
gave rise to the impression that the
public domain was legitimate property
for the INSCRIPTIONS and that it was
not contrary to good morals to cir
cumvent the land laws. This prodigal
manner of disposition resulted in the
passage of large areas of valuable land
and many of our national resources in
to the hands of persons who felt little
or no responsibility for promoting the
national welfare through their develop
ment.
"The truth is that title to millions
of acres of public lands was fraud.
ulently obtained, and that the right
to recover a large part of such lands
for the government long since ceased
by reason of statutes of limitation"
A significant statement in the mes
sage is: "Since March 4, 1909, tenn
porary withdrawals of power sites
have been made on 1O2 streams, and
these withdrawals, therefore cover 229
per cent more streams than were GOV.
cred by the withdrawals made prior to
that date.''