Morris tribune., 1913-12-05
RECLAIMING sTATE LANDS.

RECLAIWlENS1 SlAIE LANDS.
The officers of the Northern Minnesota Development
League lodged complaint with the Secretary of the
that Minnesota is living up to its contract
with the federal government reclaim the state school
lands and result patents of these lands will
be issued to the state at this time.
These lands were granted to the state many years
ago under what is known the ''swamp land grant,
the provisions of which that the state could have
these swamp the benefit of the school
fund provided it reclaimed them.
AS result of this the state has built many state
bitches which have reclaimed or at drained thou
sands acres of these lands Some of these state
lands never needed any special work reclaim them,
because their swampy character disappeared with the
era improvement and cultivation of the surrounding
try That been quite of the state swamp land
hruout this section of the state, but in Northern Min
nesota conditions have been different The state lands
laid in and the surrounding country has
not settled up so rapidly and the that there is
still larger acreage there of state land which has not
been drained More than the undrained land
the settling and development of other lands
The officers of the Northern Minnesota Development
League have lately changed their tactics of booming
northern Minnesota and have gone about the serious work
of solving the problems of Northern Minnesota. They
find the great problems to be swamps, 'stumps and
"roads''
All of these big problems requiring the cooper
alton of all the land owners of community Consider
the encouragement then when the state itself is found to
be the owner of large share of the land of community
this land is only full of and stups
but contributes nothing in taxes for the building of roads
Yet the state is under contract to ''recaim' these
lands and that brings up the question of what is meant
by reclamation Some contend that the state shoulc
only drain them but clear off the stumps and builc
roads before they be considered reclaimed. The
question for judicial Interpretation, and yet if th
get back in added value dollar fo
every dollar that spent in pulling stumps and building
roads, why quibbe about the question: State land fui
of stump swamps and without roads is next to worth
less, but in most cases would readily bring much NOR
than the cost of these improvements and thus ultimately
swell the permanent school fund of the state.
The officers of the Northern Minnesota Development
Association have been criticized for preventing Mnnesot
from patentng of her school lands but if they
ceed in calling the attention of the people of the
to a needed public work, they will perform great ser
vice only to their section, but ultimately to tn
whole in the increased size of the schoc
fund.
AS matter of fact, Northern Minnesota could as
and agtate for drainage without getting any
tention but now attention is being turned that way
and probably something will be DONE
But Northern Minnesota contains as much land a
the present we'll settled portion of state that has bee
over half century filling up, SO that here is probler
to engage the attention of several generations &C
ng to take time ard money and effort drain the
and pull the stumps and build the roads of Northel
Minnesota but that is all the more reason why the sta
should assist rather than retard that development