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Show 576 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT number of Indian tribes in Kansas by which they surrendered portions of their reserves in trust to be sold by the Indian Office. The lands were appraised and were not to be sold for less than their appraised value.33 Thereafter when Indian surplus or trust lands were to be sold the land was first to be appraised and the appraised value was to be the minimum price.34 A rough geographical classification was even established for Cherokee lands in Kansas in an Act of 1872 declaring that tracts east of the Arkansas River were to be sold for $2 an acre and those west of the river were to sell for $1.25 an acre.35 More notable instances of congressional concern for the management of Indian lands-a concern not shown toward the public lands-appeared in the relations with the Menominee and Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin and Minnesota. Heavy stands of white and Norway pine covered much of their reserves and drew the attention of lumbermen in the eighties and nineties when the government timber in these states was practically gone and that on private lands was being rapidly depleted. Since 1882 Congress had allowed the Menominee Indians to cut and sell the dead and down timber on their reserve and in 1890 authorized them to cut 20 million feet of green timber annually and if they had difficulty in marketing it at a reasonable price government agents were to superintend the driving of the logs down river.36 Gifford Pinchot gives credit to the Minnesota Federation of Women's Clubs for bringing the scandal concerning the sale of timber on Indian lands to public 331 have discussed the sale of the trust lands in Kansas in Fifty Million Acres, pp. 48 ff. 34 For stipulation for appraisal of Indian lands see Charles J. Kappler, Indian Laws and, Treaties (3 vols., Washington, 1904), Vol. 2, relating to Kansas, Sac and Fox, Pawnee, Miami, New York, Omaha, and others. 35 Kappler, Indian Laws and Treaties, 1:132. 3«26Stat. 146. attention and for the plan for the creation of a national forest from a part of the surrendered Chippewa land. Equally important, it was Pinchot who was brought into a meeting of the Minnesota delegation to Congress to draft a bill providing for management of the lands. The bill was adopted on June 27, 1902. Pinchot's prestige was high and the resulting measure was largely his. It stated that the timber on a portion of the tracts was to be cut, banked and scaled, and sold on sealed bids-not at public auction where collusion almost invariably prevented competition-after extensive advertising throughout the country. A minimum price of $4 per thousand was set for Norway pine and $5 for white pine. On 200,-000 acres of the lands to be selected by the Forester, i.e., Pinchot, the purchaser of the timber was to leave 5 percent of the pine for reforestation; after the cutting the land was to be reserved as a national forest along with numerous other choice spots to be selected by the Forester. Logging on the 200,000 acres was to be subject to regulations established by the Forester who was to have under his jurisdiction the patrolling and protection of the tract under such rules and regulations as he cared to establish. Although the General Land Office and the Department of the Interior had been "managing" the forest reserves under the Management Act of 1897, it had gained no prestige in forestry circles or seemingly in Congress which, when it wanted professional advice, turned to Pinchot and the Bureau of Forestry in Agriculture.37 37 Cong. Record, 57th Cong., 1st sess., June 19, 1902, pp. 7048, 7088; 32 Stat., Part 1, p. 406; Pinchot, Breaking New Ground, pp. 203-212. William Watts Folwell, History of Minnesota (4 vols., St. Paul, 1930), 4:258 ff., emphasizes the role of H. H. Chapman as well as that of Pinchot in the planning for the national forest on the Chippewa lands. Folwell, 4:190 ff., works through a huge amount of documentary material on the management and sale of the Chippewa lands in Minnesota, which did not work out as Pinchot had planned but rather in a large degree |