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Show ADMINISTRATION OF THE PUBLIC FOREST LANDS 575 have certain reserves created in which interested parties had large amounts of land of little value so that they could exchange it through lieu scrip, for choice timberland. State school lands were also being bought within the reserves or in areas where it was hoped reserves would be created, for the same purpose. Hermann seemed to minimize the fact that railroads were utilizing the privilege of exchange and emphasized more in his report for 1901 that holders of inferior agricultural land, presumably settlers, were doing so.29 He suggested the desirability of Congress providing that only lands of equal value should be exchanged for lands within the reserves. Until further restrictions were placed on the use of the lieu scrip he recommended that no additional reserves be created. In the light of later attacks upon Theodore Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot for the Executive orders creating 21 new forests in 1907, it is interesting to recall that much of the pressure for these and other forest reserves started with local people concerned about watershed controls, fearing floods resulting from overgrazing and from denuding the land of timber. Among the numerous petitions asking for the establishment of reserves may be seen the signatures of the mayor and comptroller of Seattle, Governor Miguel A. Otero of New Mexico, the chairman of a Republican County Committee, the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, a county judge, two Congressmen, and the Governor of Colorado.30 In 1889 Congress adopted the Nelson bill, fostered by Knute Nelson, Minnesota Representative, that provided for a survey and appraisal of the Chippewa Reserves of Minnesota. The land suitable for agriculture was to be open to homestead but at 29 Ibid., p. 119. 30 H. Doc, 56th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 100, No. 643, Part 2 (Serial No. 3997), pp. 2 ff. $1.25 an acre, and the timber was to be sold at its appraised value but not for less than $3 per thousand board feet.31 The statute required a "careful, complete and thorough examination" of the land by 40-acre tracts to be made by "competent and experienced examiners" to distinguish between those tracts primarily timbered and those having little or no timber and suitable for farming. Unfortunately, the examination and appraisal was made by persons appointed for political reasons who grossly neglected their task, and made sheer guesses that greatly underestimated the amount of timber. Widespread fraud in the sale of the Chippewa lands was later reported in Congress. One large contract for the sale of 70 million board feet of pine when scaled out came to 300 million feet and other sales showed that between three and four times as much timber was acquired as was paid for. Heavily timbered tracts were classified as agricultural; on one 80-acre homestead 800,000 feet of pine was cut. When the facts came out they brought little credit to the Office of Indian Affairs or to the Department of the Interior.32 Secretary Ethan Hitchcock suspended the sales, when these matters were brought to his attention in 1899 and 1901, until some other procedure could be worked out to prevent further robbery of the Indians. Though Congress was wholly unwilling to apply any effective classification system to the public lands or to apply to timbered land a pricing policy based on the current appraised value of the stumpage, it was experimenting-not very successfully it is true -with such a policy on Indian lands. In the 1850's it tolerated a system whereby the Indian Office arranged treaties with a 31 Act of Jan. 14, 1889, 25 Stat. 642. 32 Cong. Record, 57th Cong., 1st sess., June 19, 1902, pp. 7048, 7088; House Reports, 57th Cong., 1st sess., Vol. 7, No. 1936 (Serial No. 4405), p. 16; J. P. Kinney, A Continent Lost-A Civilization Won; Indian Land Tenure in America (Baltimore, 1937), p. 229. |