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Show ! COMMIWIONEE OF INDIAN bFPAI&5. 49 ! FEE PATENTS TO INDIANS. During the fiscal year 2,500 applications for fee patents have been received, of which 297 were denied and 2,203 approved, involving an area of 275,553 acres, valued at approximately $5,000,000. Of the fee patent applications approved, 576 were fun blood Indian allot-tees and 1,627 mixed bloods. Under the new policy and a broad-ening of its application to requests for fee patents it is estimated that several thousand fee patents will be issued to competent Indians. COMPETENCY COMMISSIONS. During the fiscal year competency commis9ions have investigated the qualifications of Indian allottees to manege their own affairs on the following Indian reservations: Cheyenne and Arapaho, Crow, Crow Creek, Devils Lake, Kickapoo, Lower B d e , Oneida, Sac and Fox, Seneca, Shawnee, and Sisseton. These commissions are wm-posed of men who are w d q u a e d for the work and who have had long experience in the Indian Service. Numerous fee patents, in-volving an area of about 50,000 ures of land, have been issued on the recommendation of these commissions. FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES. The area of the Five Civilized Tribes was 19,525,966 acres of un-allotted lands, of which 15,794,238 acres have been allotted to en-rolled members, 3,130,129 acres not needed for allotment, have been sold as surplw unallotted lands at public auction to the highest bidder for over $17,000,000, while 139,284 acres were reserved from sale and set aside for town sites, railroad righta of way, churches, courthouses, schools, cemeteries, etc., leaving remaining unsold 458,937 acres in Choctaw Nation, 721 acres in Chickasaw Nation, none in Cherokee Nation, 2,495 acres in the Creek Nation, and 162 acres in Seminole Nation. The Choctaw and Chickasaw tribal unsold lands will be offered for sale at public auction to the highest bidder from October 15 to 31, 1917, to be followed on November 19 by a sale of the remaining unsold Creek tribal lands. In volume of business transacted by the office of the superintend-ent for the five Civilized Tribes, the fiscal year 1917 surpasses all previous years. One million pieces of mail and $42,000,000 were handled. One hundred and eighty houses and barns were erected at a cost of $126,492.11; 2,042.25 acres of land were bought for. homes costing $52,437.10; 489,076.62 acres of tribal and allotted lands were soldfor $2,190,293.13; $1,741,550 were investedfor individual Indiana in Liberty loan bonds; $7,500 were invested in other loans andpur- |