PASTURAGE LANDS.
If divisional surveys were extended over the pasturage lands, favorable sites at springs and along small streams would be rapidly taken under the homestead and preëmption privileges for the nuclei of pasturage farms.
Unentered lands contiguous to such pasturage farms could be controlled to a greater or less extent by those holding the water, and in this manner the pasturage of the country would be rendered practicable. But the great body of land would remain in the possession of the Government; the farmers owning the favorable spots could not obtain possession of the adjacent lands by homestead or preëmption methods, and if such adjacent lands were offered for sale, they could not afford to pay the Government price.
Certain important facts relating to the pasturage farms may be advantageously restated.
The farm unit should not be less than 2,560 acres; the pasturage farms need small bodies of irrigable land; the division of these lands should be controlled by topographic features to give water fronts; residences of the pasturage lands should be grouped; the pasturage farms cannot be fenced—they must be occupied in common.
The homestead and preëmption methods are inadequate to meet these conditions. A general law should be enacted to provide for the organization of pasturage districts, in which the residents should have the right to make their own regulations for the division of the lands, the use of the water for irrigation and for watering the stock, and for the pasturage of the lands in common or in severalty. But each division or pasturage farm of the district should be owned by an individual; that is, these lands could be settled and improved by the “colony” plan better than by any other. It should not be understood that the colony system applies only to such persons as migrate from the east in a body; any number of persons already in this region could thus organize. In fact very large bodies of these lands would be taken by people who are already in the country and who have herds with which they roam about seeking water and grass, and making no permanent residences and no valuable improvements. Such a plan would give immediate relief to all these people.
This district or colony system is not untried in this country. It is essentially the basis of all the mining district organizations of the west. Under it the local rules and regulations for the division of mining lands, the use of water, timber, etc., are managed better than they could possibly be under specific statutes of the United States. The association of a number of people prevents single individuals from having undue control of natural privileges, and secures an equitable division of mineral lands; and all this is secured in obedience to statutes of the United States providing general regulations.
Customs are forming and regulations are being made by common consent among the people in some districts already; but these provide no means for the acquirement of titles to land, no incentive is given to the improvement of the country, and no legal security to pasturage rights.
If, then, the irrigable lands can be taken in quantities to suit purchasers, and the colony system provided for poor men who wish to coöperate in this industry; if the timber lands are opened to timber enterprises, and the pasturage lands offered to settlement under a colony plan like that indicated above, a land system would be provided for the Arid Region adapted to the wants of all persons desiring to become actual settlers therein. Thousands of men who now own herds and live a semi-nomadic life; thousands of persons who now roam from mountain range to mountain range prospecting for gold, silver, and other minerals; thousands of men who repair to that country and return disappointed from the fact that they are practically debarred from the public lands; and thousands of persons in the eastern states without employment, or discontented with the rewards of labor, would speedily find homes in the great Rocky Mountain Region.
In making these recommendations, the wisdom and beneficence of the homestead system have been recognized and the principles involved have been considered paramount.
To give more definite form to some of the recommendations for legislation made above, two bills have been drawn, one relating to the organization of irrigation districts, the other to pasturage districts. These bills are presented here. It is not supposed that these forms are the best that could be adopted; perhaps they could be greatly improved; but they have been carefully considered, and it is believed they embody the recommendations made above.
A BILL to authorize the organization of irrigation districts by homestead settlements upon the public lands requiring irrigation for agricultural purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be lawful for any nine or more persons who may be entitled to acquire a homestead from the public lands, as provided for in sections twenty-two hundred and eighty-nine to twenty-three hundred and seventeen, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, to settle an irrigation district and to acquire titles to irrigable lands under the limitations and conditions hereinafter provided.
Sec. 2. That it shall be lawful for the persons mentioned in section one of this act to organize an irrigation district in accordance with a form and general regulations to be prescribed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which shall provide for a recorder; and said persons may make such by-laws, not in conflict with said regulations, as they may deem wise for the use of waters in such district for irrigation or other purposes, and for the division of the lands into such parcels as they may deem most convenient for irrigating purposes; but the same must accord with the provisions of this act.
Sec. 3. That all lands in those portions of the United States where irrigation is necessary to agriculture, which can be redeemed by irrigation and for which there is accessible water for such purpose, not otherwise utilized or lawfully claimed, sufficient for the irrigation of three hundred and twenty acres of land, shall, for the purposes set forth in this act, be classed as irrigable lands.
Sec. 4. That it shall be lawful for the requisite number of persons, as designated in section one of this act, to select from the public lands designated as irrigable lands in section three of this act, for the purpose of settling thereon, an amount of land not exceeding eighty acres to each person; but the lands thus selected by the persons desiring to organize an irrigation district shall be in one continuous tract, and the same shall be subdivided as the regulations and by-laws of the irrigation district shall prescribe: Provided, That no one person shall be entitled to more than eighty acres.
Sec. 5. That whenever such irrigation district shall be organized the recorder of such district shall notify the register and receiver of the land district in which such irrigation district is situate, and also the Surveyor-General of the United States, that such irrigation district has been organized; and each member of the organization of said district shall file a declaration with the register and receiver of said land district that he has settled upon a tract of land within such irrigation district, not exceeding the prescribed amount, with the intention of residing thereon and obtaining a title thereto under the provisions of this act.
Sec. 6. That if within three years after the organization of the irrigation district the claimants therein, in their organized capacity, shall apply for a survey of said district to the Surveyor-General of the United States, he shall cause a proper survey to be made, together with a plat of the same; and on this plat each tract or parcel of land into which the district is divided, such tract or parcel being the entire claim of one person, shall be numbered, and the measure of every angle, the length of every line in the boundaries thereof, and the number of acres in each tract or parcel shall be inscribed thereon, and the name of the district shall appear on the plat in full; and this plat and the field-notes of such survey shall be submitted to the Surveyor-General of the United States; and it shall be the duty of that officer to examine the plat and notes therewith and prove the accuracy of the survey in such manner as the Commissioner of the General Land Office may prescribe; and if it shall appear after such examination and proving that correct surveys have been made, and that the several tracts claimed are within the provisions of this act, he shall certify the same to the register of the land district, and shall thereupon furnish to the said register of the land district, and to the recorder of the irrigation district, and to the recorder or clerk of the county in which the irrigation district is situate, and to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, a copy thereof to each, and the original shall be retained in the office of the Surveyor-General of the United States for preservation.
Sec. 7. That each person applying for the benefits of this act shall, in addition to compliance therewith, conform to the methods provided for the acquirement of a homestead in sections twenty-two hundred and eighty-nine to twenty-three hundred and seventeen, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, so far as they are applicable and consistent with this act, and shall also furnish such evidence as the Commissioner of the General Land Office may require that such land has actually been redeemed by irrigation, and may thereupon obtain a patent: Provided, That no person shall obtain a patent under this act to any coal lands, town sites, or tracts of public lands on which towns may have been built, or to any mine of gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, or other mineral for the sale or disposal of which provision has been made by law.
Sec. 8. That the lands patented under the provisions of this act shall be described as irrigation farms, and designated by the number of the tract or parcel and the name of the irrigation district.
Sec. 9. That the right to the water necessary to the redemption of an irrigation farm shall inhere in the land from the time of the organization of the irrigation district, and in all subsequent conveyances the right to the water shall pass with the title to the land. But if after the lapse of five years from the date of the organization of the district the owner of any irrigation farm shall have failed to irrigate the whole or any part of the same, the right to the use of the necessary water to irrigate the unreclaimed lands shall thereupon lapse, and any subsequent right to water necessary for the cultivation of said unreclaimed land shall be acquired only by priority of utilization.
Sec. 10. That it shall be lawful for any person entitled to acquire a homestead from the public lands as designated in section one of this act to settle on an irrigation farm contiguous to any irrigation district after such district has been organized by making the notifications and declaration provided for in section five of this act, and by notifying the recorder of such irrigation district, and also by complying with the rules and regulations of such district; and such person may thereupon become a member of the district and entitled to the same privileges as the other members thereof; and it shall be the duty of the recorder of the irrigation district to notify the register and receiver of the land district, and also the Surveyor-General of the United States, that such claim has been made; and such person may obtain a patent to the same under the conditions and by conforming to the methods prescribed in this act: Provided, That the water necessary for the irrigation of such farm can be taken without injury to the rights of any person who shall have entered an irrigation farm in such district: And provided further, That the right to the water necessary to the redemption of such irrigation farm shall inhere in the land from the time when said person becomes a member of said district, and in all subsequent conveyances the right to the water shall pass with the title to the land; but if, after the lapse of five years from the date of said notifications and declaration, the owner of said irrigation farm shall have failed to irrigate the whole or any part of the same, the right to the use of the necessary water to irrigate the unreclaimed lands shall thereupon lapse, and any subsequent right to the water necessary for the cultivation of the said unreclaimed land shall be acquired only by priority of utilization.
A BILL to authorize the organization of pasturage districts by homestead settlements on the public lands which are of value for pasturage purposes only.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That it shall be lawful for any nine or more persons who may be entitled to acquire a homestead from the public lands, as provided for in section twenty-two hundred and eighty-nine to twenty-three hundred and seventeen, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, to settle a pasturage district and to acquire titles to pasturage lands under the limitations and conditions hereinafter provided.
Sec. 2. That it shall be lawful for the persons mentioned in section one of this act to organize a pasturage district in accordance with a form and general regulations to be prescribed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which shall provide for a recorder; and said persons may make such by-laws, not in conflict with said regulations, as they may deem wise for the use of waters in such district for irrigation or other purposes, and for the pasturage of the lands severally or conjointly; but the same must accord with the provisions of this act.
Sec. 3. That all lands in those portions of the United States where irrigation is necessary to agriculture shall be, for the purposes set forth in this act, classed as pasturage lands, excepting all tracts of land of not less than three hundred and twenty acres which can be redeemed by irrigation, and where there is sufficient accessible water for such purpose not otherwise utilized or lawfully claimed, and all lands bearing timber of commercial value.
Sec. 4. That it shall be lawful for the requisite number of persons, as designated in section one of this act, to select from the public lands designated as pasturage lands in section three of this act, for the purpose of settling thereon, an amount of land not exceeding two thousand five hundred and sixty acres to each person; but the lands thus selected by the persons desiring to organize a pasturage district shall be in one continuous tract, and the same shall be subdivided as the regulations and by-laws of the pasturage district shall prescribe: Provided, That no one person shall be entitled to more than two thousand five hundred and sixty acres, and this may be in one continuous body, or it may be in two parcels, one for irrigation, the other for pasturage purposes; but the parcel for irrigation shall not exceed twenty acres: And provided further, That no tract or tracts of land selected for any one person shall be entitled to a greater amount of water for irrigating purposes than that sufficient for the reclamation and cultivation of twenty acres of land; nor shall the tract be selected in such a manner along a stream as to monopolize a greater amount.
Sec. 6. That whenever such pasturage district shall be organized, the recorder of such district shall notify the register and receiver of the land district in which such pasturage district is situate, and also the Surveyor-General of the United States, that such pasturage district has been organized; and each member of the organization of said district shall file a declaration with the register and receiver of said land district that he has settled upon a tract of land within such pasturage district, not exceeding the prescribed amount, with the intention of residing thereon and obtaining a title thereto under the provisions of this act.
Sec. 6. That if within three years after the organization of the pasturage district the claimants therein, in their organized capacity, shall apply for a survey of said district to the Surveyor-General of the United States, he shall cause a proper survey to be made, together with a plat of the same; and on this plat each tract or parcel of land into which the district is divided shall be numbered, and the measure of every angle, the length of every line in the boundaries thereof, and the number of acres in each tract or parcel, shall be inscribed thereon, and the name of the district shall appear on the plat in full; and this plat and the field-notes of such survey shall be submitted to the Surveyor-General of the United States; and it shall be the duty of that officer to examine the plat and notes therewith and prove the accuracy of the survey in such manner as the Commissioner of the General Land Office may prescribe; and if it shall appear after such examination and proving that correct surveys have been made, and that the several tracts claimed are within the provisions of this act, he shall certify the same to the register of the land district, and shall furnish to the said register of the land district, and to the recorder of the pasturage district, and to the recorder or clerk of the county in which the pasturage district is situate, and to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, a copy thereof to each; and the original shall be retained in the office of the Surveyor-General of the United States for preservation.
Sec. 7. That each person applying for the benefits of this act shall, in addition to compliance therewith, conform to the methods provided for the acquirement of a homestead in sections twenty-two hundred and eighty-nine to twenty-three hundred and seventeen, inclusive, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, so far as they are applicable and consistent with this act, and may thereupon obtain a patent: Provided, That no person shall obtain a patent under this act to any coal lands, town sites, or tracts of public lands on which towns may have been built, or to any mine of gold, silver, cinnabar, copper, or other mineral for the sale or disposal of which provision has been made by law.
Sec. 8. That the lands patented under the provisions of this act shall be described as pasturage farms, and designated by the number of the tract or parcel and the name of the pasturage district.
Sec. 9. That the right to the water necessary to the redemption of an irrigation tract of a pasturage farm shall inhere in the land from the time of the organization of the pasturage district, and in all subsequent conveyances the right to the water shall pass with the title to the tract; but if after a lapse of five years from the date of the organization of the pasturage district the owner of any pasturage farm shall have failed to irrigate the whole or any part of the irrigable tract the right to the use of the necessary water to irrigate the unreclaimed land shall thereupon lapse, and any subsequent right to water necessary for the cultivation of such unreclaimed land shall be acquired only by priority of utilization.
Sec. 10. That it shall be lawful for any person entitled to acquire a homestead from the public lands designated in section one of this act to settle on a pasturage farm contiguous to any pasturage district after such district has been organized, by making the notifications and declaration provided for in section five of this act, and by notifying the recorder of such pasturage district, and also by complying with the rules and regulations of such district; and such person may thereupon become a member of the district and entitled to the same privileges as the other members thereof; and it shall be the duty of the recorder of the pasturage district to notify the register and receiver of the land district, and also the Surveyor-General of the United States, that such claim has been made; and such person may obtain a patent to the same under the conditions and by conforming to the methods prescribed in this act: Provided, That the water necessary for such farm can be taken without injury to the rights of any person who shall have entered a pasturage farm in such district: And provided further, That the right to the water necessary to the redemption of the irrigable tract of such pasturage farm shall inhere in the land from the time when said person becomes a member of said district, and in all subsequent conveyances the right to the water shall pass with the title to the land; but if, after the lapse of five years from the date of such notifications and declaration, the owner of said irrigable tract shall have failed to irrigate the whole or any part of the same, the right to the use of the necessary water to irrigate the unreclaimed land shall thereupon lapse, and any subsequent right to the water necessary to the cultivation of the said unreclaimed land shall be acquired only by priority of utilization.
The provisions in the submitted bills by which the settlers themselves may parcel their lands may need further comment and elucidation. If the whole of the Arid Region was yet unsettled, it might be wise for the Government to undertake the parceling of the lands and employ skilled engineers to do the work, whose duties could then be performed in advance of settlement. It is manifest that this work cannot be properly performed under the contract system; it would be necessary to employ persons of skill and judgment under a salary system. The mining industries which have sprung up in the country since the discovery of gold on the Pacific coast, in 1849, have stimulated immigration, so that settlements are scattered throughout the Arid Region; mining towns have sprung up on the flanks of almost every great range of mountains, and adjacent valleys have been occupied by persons desiring to engage in agriculture. Many of the lands surveyed along the minor streams have been entered, and the titles to these lands are in the hands of actual settlers. Many pasturage farms, or ranches, as they are called locally, have been established throughout the country. These remarks are true of every state and territory in the Arid Region. In the main these ranches or pasturage farms are on Government land, and the settlers are squatters, and some are not expecting to make permanent homes. Many other persons have engaged in pasturage enterprises without having made fixed residences, but move about from place to place with their herds. It is now too late for the Government to parcel the pasturage lands in advance of the wants of settlers in the most available way, so as to closely group residences and give water privileges to the several farms. Many of the settlers are actually on the ground, and are clamoring for some means by which they can obtain titles to pasturage farms of an extent adequate to their wants, and the tens of thousands of individual interests would make the problem a difficult one for the officers of the Government to solve. A system less arbitrary than that of the rectangular surveys now in vogue, and requiring unbiased judgment, overlooking the interests of single individuals and considering only the interests of the greatest number, would meet with local opposition. The surveyors themselves would be placed under many temptations, and would be accused—sometimes rightfully perhaps, sometimes unjustly—of favoritism and corruption, and the service would be subject to the false charges of disappointed men on the one hand, and to truthful charges against corrupt men on the other. In many ways it would be surrounded with difficulties and fall into disrepute.
Under these circumstances it is believed that it is best to permit the people to divide their lands for themselves—not in a way by which each man may take what he pleases for himself, but by providing methods by which these settlers may organize and mutually protect each other from the rapacity of individuals. The lands, as lands, are of but slight value, as they cannot be used for ordinary agricultural purposes, i. e., the cultivation of crops; but their value consists in the scant grasses which they spontaneously produce, and these values can be made available only by the use of the waters necessary for the subsistence of stock, and that necessary for the small amount of irrigable land which should be attached to the several pasturage farms. Thus, practically, all values inhere in the water, and an equitable division of the waters can be made only by a wise system of parceling the lands; and the people in organized bodies can well be trussed with this right, while individuals could not thus be trusted. These considerations have led to the plan suggested in the bill submitted for the organization of pasturage districts.
In like manner, in the bill designed for the purpose of suggesting a plan for the organization of irrigation districts, the same principle is involved, viz, that of permitting the settlers themselves to subdivide the lands into such tracts as they may desire.
The lands along the streams are not valuable for agricultural purposes in continuous bodies or squares, but only in irrigable tracts governed by the levels of the meandering canals which carry the water for irrigation, and it would be greatly to the advantage of every such district if the lands could be divided into parcels, governed solely by the conditions under which the water could be distributed over them; and such parceling cannot be properly done prior to the occupancy of the lands, but can only be made pari passu with the adoption of a system of canals; and the people settling on these lands should be allowed the privilege of dividing the lands into such tracts as may be most available for such purposes, and they should not be hampered with the present arbitrary system of dividing the lands into rectangular tracts.
Those who are acquainted with the history of the land system of the eastern states, and know the difficulty of properly identifying or determining the boundaries of many of the parcels or tracts of land into which the country is divided, and who appreciate the cumbrous method of describing such lands by metes and bounds in conveyances, may at first thought object to the plan of parceling lands into irregular tracts. They may fear that if the system of parceling the lands into townships and sections, and describing the same in conveyances by reference to certain great initial points in the surveys of the lands, is abandoned, it will lead to the uncertainties and difficulties that belonged to the old system. But the evils of that system did not belong to the shape into which the lands were divided. The lands were often not definitely and accurately parceled; actual boundary lines were not fixed on the ground and accurate plats were not made, and the description of the boundary lines was usually vague and uncertain. It matters not what the shape of tracts or parcels may be; if these parcels are accurately defined by surveys on the ground and plotted for record, none of these uncertainties will arise, and if these tracts or parcels are lettered or numbered on the plats, they may be very easily described in conveyances without entering into a long and tedious description of metes and bounds.
In most of our western towns and cities lots are accurately surveyed and plotted and described by number of lot, number of block, etc., etc., and such a simple method should be used in conveying the pasturage lands. While the system of parceling and conveying by section, township, range, etc., was a very great improvement on the system which previously existed, the much more simple method used in most of our cities and towns would be a still further improvement.
The title to no tract of land should be conveyed from the Government to the individual until the proper survey of the same is made and the plat prepared for record. With this precaution, which the Government already invariably takes in disposing of its lands, no fear of uncertainty of identification need be entertained.