Evening star., 1932-08-14
u. S. HAS 2OO,OOO,OOO ACRES
AFTER SELLING 1,8OO,OO0,OOO
Land Office Business Romantic Record
of Migration of People to Soil, as
Told i'm Book by W. A. Du Puy.

lie debt. In 1920 the "pre-emption"
law was passed, as an aid to conserva-
ton, under which the settler acquired
first right to buy it at SIPS an acre. In
1862 the homestead law was passed,
under which bona fide settler, citizen
of the United States. might acquire title
to a quarter section by making his home
on it for a period of five years.
This law is held by many to have
turned out to be the greatest of all
conservation measures" the Land ONCE
report saws. 1T was under it that those
hordes of settlers which swept West at
the close of the Civil War found per
manent homes with their feet in the
soil.'
Forestation found place in the Land
Office administration in 1873 in the
timber culture act, which made posi-
bic acquisition of Government land as
a reward for planting trees on 1t. Tim
ber lands were withdrawn from settle
ment in 1891 and the Forest Service
was created decade later.
Many Homes Abandoned.
The arbitrary dividing of land into
metric shapes naturally brought mar
ginal failures where the land was
poorly suited Tor settlement. Through
out the Rocky Mountain region and
Western States tragic skeletons Of
abandoned homes tell the gaunt and
heartless story of human hardshipS and
a contest with nature doomed to failure.
. The whole sad process of failure
could have been avoided if we had un-
derstood the problems of spreading a
great population over a continent for
successful living" BY 1909 most of the
good farm land had been sold. so the
Government tried several methods Of
dispoSing of land which proved success
full
The first was an enlarged homestead
act permitting the settler to buy 800
acres, an amount of land which would
provide enough to support a family
where one-quarter would not. Then
the stock raising act was passed provid-
ing 640-acre units of land for cattle
and sheep raisers. Desert land" en-
tries were permitted by another act by
which citizens might file on desert land
if he was able to find way of getting
water on it. Later other irrigation acts
were passed to stimulate the produc-
tivity Of these dry lands.
Lands for public schools were first set
aside in 1902. At first the States were
given l square mile out of every 36 for
schools and then later this generosity
rose to two sections in each township.
Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, the last
States to come into the Union, have
four sections in each township for
schools. THE sum total of this area
which was given to the States for edu-
cational purposes is SO vast as to be
hard to comprehend" Mr.. Du Juy says.
1T makes up a land surface that is
equal to all of New England. all of the
Middle Atlantic States plus North Caro-
lima and Tennessee"
States Receive Titles.
Beginning in 1849 the Federal Gov
ernment transferred title of all public
swamps to the States. The area of all
such lands amounted to 65,000,000 acres,
or the equivalent Of two New Yorks.
An area equal to Texas has gone into
Indian reservations. Two and one-half
| Connecticuts have been set aside as
national parks. Transcontinental rail-
roads were given 1876 100000 acres of
| land, equivalent to four States like
Iowa, in order to help develop the coun-
| try.
Another and highly important phase
i of the Governments real estate Office is
the disposal of mineral wealth of the
! public domain Ito get proper money re-
turns from it and so to prevent its waste
as national resource" From the be-
ginning the Government retained min
| eral lands and through the years mining
laws were passed to afford strict sur
veillance Of the natural resources. Un-
der the Federal leasing act the title to
coal and oil lands remains permanently
, in the Government, but the minerals
| that lie in them may be produced on a
royalty basis. When the lessee ceases to
produce from the land the property re-
turns to the Government. The royalty
the lessee pays varies with the quality
and quantity of the coal and oil.
"As it works out" Mr.. Du Puy ex-
plains, there lies in this leasing act
certain possibilities in the field of con-
servation that do not appear on the
surface. The overproduction of oil had
become menace to the industry before
President Hoover came into Office. He
had been at the helm but seven days
when he stopped the issuance of permits
to prospect on the ground that there
was no occasion for the development of
oil production where there was already
too much.
Results in Conservation.
"ThiS resulted in a certain amount Of
conservation, but it served still larger
| purpose in the example that the gov
ernment under the circumstances set to
| d4l VI Oll. LdlCL lIlc
ence of leased lands was brought to bear
| in bringing about unit operation of
| Kettleman Hills. A bill was passed in
1881 specifically authorizing the Secre-
| tary of the Interior to enter into such
agreements for unit operation"
About rs per cent of the receipts of
| the General Land Office are rents and
royalties from leases of coal and oil
lands. while the remaining moneys re-
suit largely from sales of public lands.
OF the coal and oil money, 10 per cent
is retained by the Federal Government,
while 80 per cent is divided between the
reclamation fund and the States in
which the coal and oil is produced.
OF the money received from the sale
of public lands, 5 per cent goes to the
! States in which the lands lie, and the
| balance, but for small exceptions, to the
reclamation fund. Thus does it work
out that practically all of the money
that is secured from these natural re-
| sources is returned to the western
States and spent in them.