It is hoped that if this system continues to be strictly adhered to there will soon be as a natural consequence such an equalization of party benefit as will remove all temptation to relax or abandon it.
The report of the Secretary of the Interior exhibits the situation of the numerous and interesting branches of the public service connected with his Department. I commend this report and the valuable recommendations of the Secretary to the careful attention of the Congress.
The public land disposed of during the year amounted to 10,406,100.77 acres, including 28,876.05 of Indian lands.
It is estimated that the public domain still remaining amounts to a little more than 600,000,000 acres, including, however, about 360,000,000 acres in Alaska, as well as military reservations and railroad and other selections of lands yet unadjudicated.
The total cash receipts from sale of lands amounted to $2,674,285.79, including $91,981.03 received for Indian lands.
Thirty-five thousand patents were issued for agricultural lands, and 3,100 patents were issued to Indians on allotments of their holdings in severalty, the land so allotted being inalienable by the Indian allottees for a period of twenty-five years after patent.
There were certified and patented on account of railroad and wagon-road grants during the year 865,556.45 acres of land, and at the close of the year 29,000,000 acres were embraced in the lists of selections made by railroad and wagon-road companies and awaited settlement.
The selections of swamp lands and that taken as indemnity therefor since the passage of the act providing for the same in 1849 amount to nearly or quite 80,500,000 acres, of which 58,000,000 have been patented to States. About 138,000 acres were patented during the last year. Nearly 820,000 acres of school and education grants were approved during the year, and at its close 1,250,363.81 acres remained unadjusted.
It appears that the appropriation for the current year on account of special service for the protection of the public lands and the timber thereon is much less than those for previous years, and inadequate for an efficient performance of the work. A larger sum of money than has been appropriated during a number of years past on this account has been returned to the Government as a result of the labors of those employed in the particular service mentioned, and I hope it will not be crippled by insufficient appropriation.
I fully indorse the recommendation of the Secretary that adequate protection be provided for our forest reserves and that a comprehensive forestry system be inaugurated. Such keepers and superintendents as are necessary to protect the forests already reserved should be provided. I am of the opinion that there should be an abandonment of the policy sanctioned by present laws under which the Government, for a very small consideration, is rapidly losing title to immense tracts of land covered with timber, which should be properly reserved as permanent sources of timber supply.