The Glenwood post., 1911-11-04
TELL THE TRUTH
SAYS THE BLADE
A Hot Roast For Those Pa
pers Who Resort to False.
hood to Bolster Their
Own Ideas
BOOST, DON'T KNOCK

The Post has for several years tried
to make plain the fact that western
Colorado is in the United States an |
therefore amenable to federal laws and
practices. We have also shown that
much of the opposition against the
federal conservation plan was founded,
either upon downright ignorance or Il
desire to fight the government for the
mere sake of fighting and without re
gard to truth, law or justice.
We do not sanction everything that
comes from Washington in the way of
u rule or order, but we have claimed
that such rules as were unjust or bur
densome to the people could be modified
much more readily by showing their
bad features than by howling at the
neon and emitting lot of tommyrot
which everyone knows to be untrue.
The latest newspaper advocate to the
line of truth and reason is the Eagle
County Blade which in its last issue
has the following on the subject:
A short time ago an editorial appear
ed in tile GIenwood Avalanche mildly
roasting The Blade because we made
mention of the fact that the conserva-
tion convention called by Governor
Shafroth was a frost. The Avalanche
states that the national forest policy
was bad one for Eagle county's indus
tries of mining and that it hindere1
homestead ne. and fiat the whole west-
ern slope was retarded in settlement
because of the national forests.
In order to find out just what the
facts in the case are, we took the
trouble to Look up the statistics to see
whether there was foundation for the
Avalanche's IS statements.
We find the Avalanche either ignor-
ant of what the actual facts are or
else giving an exhibition of Shot air, -
as what we found upon Investigation
was that homesteading within the ma
tional forests is not only encouraged,
but, invited All that is necessary for
the prospective bomesteader to do is
to find tract of land agricultural in
character, make application to have it
restored to entry and the forest service
does the rest. If it is on unsurveyed
land, even the survey. is made at the
cost of the forest service and it is now
arranged so that this survey is under
the supervision of the surveyor gen
eral so that the claimant need incur
no expense when the claim goes to
patent in having an additional survey
made.
Before the creation of the forest it
was impossb for a man to file on
piece of land, no matter how desirable
it might be, in an unsurveyed town
ship. This in great measure, retard
ed settlement on uusurveyed lands as
a squatter might wait years to secure
title to his land and in fact he might
never be able to secure It. 1t is often
advantageous to the homeseeker to
apply for land in an unsurveyed town
shin within the national forest, as IN
most eases the land which is agricu'-
tural in character. lies in small tracts
or patches If the township We're sur
veyed the claimant would be obliged to
file on certain legal subdivisions to get
the land desired. To keep within the
homestead acreage limit probably only
Il small part of the agricultural lan1
he desired could be secured as the le-
gal subdivisions would no doubt in
cmde rugged, rocky, hillsides, etc,
land which he could not hope to make
much use of in the way Of supporting
Il family. while forest service survey
hy metes and bounds takes in all the
contiguous agricultural land not in ex-
cess of 160 acres, excluding uncultiva
BILE land, thus giving n greater acreage
of cutiivable land than it would he
possible to secure under other condi.
tions. In unsurveyed townships the
procedure is practically the same with
the exception that the application is
necessarily confined to legal snbdivis-
ions, but if it is agricultural in charac-
ter it is thrown open to entry and may
be filed upon the same as other public
domain. After the land is restored to
entry the matter of securing title il