The division of these lands should be controlled by topographic features in such manner as to give the greatest number of water fronts to the pasturage farms.
Residences of the pasturage farms should be grouped, in order to secure the benefits of local social organizations, and coöperation in public improvements.
The pasturage lands will not usually be fenced, and hence herds must roam in common.
As the pasturage lands should have water fronts and irrigable tracts, and as the residences should be grouped, and as the lands cannot be economically fenced and must be kept in common, local communal regulations or coöperation is necessary.
CHAPTER II.
THE LAND SYSTEM NEEDED FOR THE ARID REGION.
The growth and prosperity of the Arid Region will depend largely upon a land system which will comply with the requirements of the conditions and facts briefly set forth in the former chapter.
Any citizen of the United States may acquire title to public lands by purchase at public sale or by ordinary “private entry”, and in virtue of preëmption, homestead, timber culture, and desert land laws.
Purchase at public sale may be effected when the lands are offered at public auction to the highest bidder, either pursuant to proclamation by the President or public notice given in accordance with instructions from the General Land Office. If the land is thus offered and purchasers are not found, they are then subject to “private entry” at the rate of $1.25 or $2.50 per acre. For a number of years it has not been the practice of the Government to dispose of the public lands by these methods; but the public lands of the southern states are now, or soon will be, thus offered for sale.
Any citizen may preëmpt 160 acres of land, and by settling thereon, erecting a dwelling, and making other improvements, and by paying $1.25 per acre in some districts, without the boundaries of railroad grants, and $2.50 within the boundaries of railroad grants in others, may acquire title thereto. The preëmption right can be exercised but once. No person can exercise the preëmption right who is already the owner of 320 acres of land.
Any citizen may, under the homestead privilege, obtain title to 160 acres of land valued at $1.25 per acre, or 80 acres valued at the rate of $2.50, by payment of $5 in the first case and $10 in the last, and by residing on the land for the term of five years and by making certain improvements.