Year: 1864

Number of acres remaining unsold


in the above counties. ........... 259, 1895, 20
Amount realized from the lands


sold neutrality-suspicious.. 1907, ,3O9 O6


The average price of the lands sold was
Sc 10 per acre. If the residue of the
school lands in the couhties where the
sales have been had. should sell, as they
probably will, at the same rate, the ag-
CRATE product would be 81, 1877 ,O51, and
the whole body of the school lands at the
same rate. would produce a permanent
fund OF about SIG, 900, 900, which at seven
per cent. interest would yield an annual
income of 81, 100000, sum sufficient to
maintain system of public schools at the
high educational standard of Massacau-
setts for population of nearly a million
souls. And it may be safely assumed that
Gales will proceed at this rate as rapidly as
the increase of population shall require an
increase of the school fund, for as the
growth of population creates demand for
new schools, the value OF the school lands
will be developed by the same causes, in
nearly the same proportion.


The sum realized from the two-mill tax
for the support of schools, is about $45,-
600. This tax might be profitably re-
duced, as before suggested, in proportion
to the income realized from the school
fund, and in few years it may be reason
ably hoped that the revenue derived from
this source will be sufficient to entirely
obviate the necessity of imposing school
tax.


In this, as in other States, important and
interesting questions between the State
and the National Government have arisen,
a decision Of which in favor of the State
will greatly enhance the value of this al
ready extensive source of revenue. Of
these, the most prominent are the contro-
versy regarding school sections on the
Winnebago Reservation, the Sioux Half
Breed tract, and the contest now pending
in the Supreme Court of the United States
as to the validity of the joint resolutions
of Congress of March Sd, 1857, allowing
pre-emptions upon school lands by persons
settling thereon prior to the survey.


The questions involved in each of these
controversies all depend more or less d.
rectly upon the construction of the organic
act of the Territory Of 1849, the State
claiming that by virtue of Section l6 of
that Act, all school sections within the
territorial limits were solemnly set apart
and dedicated by Congress to a public
charity, and that such dedication operated
to deprive Congress of all further power
of disposition over them. Probably the
prospective beneht to the State resulting
from favorable decision upon these points
may be estimated at several hundred thou
sand dollars, as the paltry right to select
other lands in the uninhabited regions be
yond the frontier, in place of the fertile tracts
upon the Winnebago reservation, which
has long been justly regarded as one of the
gardens of the State, or Of the valuable
sections in the vicinity of our largest cities,
towns, and villages, many of which have
been obtained by prescriptions of doubtful
faith, and sometimes VIGOROUSLY fraudu-
lent, can but po,rly compensate her for
the loss she must sustain by an adverse
decision.


In this connection, desire to call your
attention to the imperative necessity for
seme more adequate provision for the pro-
lection OF the public lands menaced by
pre-emptions, than any now existing. For
more minute information upon these inter
estlng subjects, refer you to the reports
OF the Auditor and Attorney General. It
is only necessary to add upon this subject
that the most important financial interest
of the State is involved in the public lands,
and no subject is more worthy. or more
imperatively demands the thoughtful con-
sideration of the Legislature.


1t is greatly to be regretted that the
sagacious policy which has been observed
in the disposition of the school lands, had
not controlled the management of the Uni.
versity reserves To devise and adopt
some plan by which this munifcent en-