The Prescott daily news., 1910-12-06

uealiheht oi our Iorect lands. It waa probably the ruthless destruction =, forests in the older states that nrs. called attention to the nacesstty for . haA in the waste of our resources
 Tn the present forest reserves th.,. are lands which are not properly sor- est, and which ought to bs suhisct to homestead entry. This has oausad some local irritation. We are oara, fully eliminating such lands from for. est reserves or where their elimiro tion is not practical listing them far entry under the forest homestead not
 Congress ought to trust the exso,, tive to use the power of reservation only with respect to land most yan. able for forest purposes. During the present administration, 6296O 0eo acres of land largely non.timbered have been excluded from forest ra' serves, and 3.500.00o acres of land principally valued for forest purposa. have been included in forest resolves making reduction in forest reserves of non-imbered land amounting to 2,750 900 acres"
 Coal Lands.
 The next subject, and one most I'm. portant for your consideration. is the disposition of the coal lands in the United States and Alaska At tho hA. ginning of this administration thera were withdrawn from entry for pur. poses of classification 17,s67, 1000 acres
 
 drawn by my order from entry for classification 78,s77,746 acres, makins total withdrawal of s6,S44,745 acres. Meantime of the acres thus with. drawn 1,061, ,SS9 have been classified and found not to contain coal and have been restored to agricultural ep. try, and 4,726,091 acres have been classified as coal lands; while 7.993.239 acres remain withdrawn from entry and await classification. In addition 337000 acres have been classified as coal lands without prior withdrawal. thus increasing the classified coal lands to 10,429,S72 acres.
 Under the laws providing for the disposal Of coal lands in the United States, the minimum price at which lands are permitted to be sold Is s10 an acre; but the secretary of the in. teror has the power to fix maximum price and to sell at that price
 'As one-third of all the coal supply Is held by the government, it seems wise that 1t should retain such con. trol over the mining and the sale as tee relation of lessor to lessee fur nishes.
 The secretary of the interior thinks there are difficulties in the way of leasing public coal lands, which ob- jections he has set forth in hls re- port, the force of which freely con cede. entirely approve his stating at length in his report of tho obiec tions in order that the whole subject may be presented to congress, but after . full consideration, for the req sons have given above. fsvo, a leasing system and recommend 1t"
 Water Power sItss.
 Prior to March (, 1909. there had been, on the recomm endation of the reclamation service, withdrawn from agricultural entry, because they were regarded as useful for power sites which ought not to be disposed of as agricultural lands. tracts amounting to about 100000 acres. The with drawals were hastily made and in- cluded a great deal of land that was not useful for power sites. They were intended to include the power sites on 29 rivers in states. Since that time 3,475.442 acres have been re- stored for settlement of the original 4,000,000 because they do not con- tain power sites; and meantime, new withdrawals have been made which, with other restorations based upon field examination. result in withdraw als at present effective of 1,2lS,356 acres on vacant public land and 2J2,- l97 acres on entered public land, or total of 1.420,553 acres. These with draWals made from time to time cover all the power sites included Tn the first withdrawals and many more, on 151 rivers and in 12 states The dls' position of these power sites involves one of the most difficult questions pre- scented in carrying out practical con servation.
 The subject is one that calls TOT new legislation. It has been thought that there was danger of combination to obtain possession of all the power sites and to unite them under one control. Whatever the evidence oI this, or lack of 1t, st present we nave had enough experience to know that