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Show 420 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT of the Colorado River, attempted to draft plans for future government policy toward the remaining public lands. He was convinced that outside the five southern public land states, and possibly the coastal states, the government had nothing left that was suitable for ordinary humid or semi-humid farming but scattered tracts and that new policies should be adopted for the arid lands beyond the 100th meridian, if they were to be made productive. Powell recommended that land be classified and disposed of according to its best use. Low lying lands beyond the 100th meridian where water was available might be irrigated, and such irrigable lands should be disposed of in small tracts of no more than 80 acres. Back of the streams where water was not available, the land was only suitable, he believed, for pasture and should be subject to entry in amounts no smaller than 2,560 acres. At higher elevations in the mountains were great stands of commercial timber. These timbered lands should be sold to lumbermen and woodsmen who should control them and establish fire protection over them. Powell was no advocate of government control and development of these resources but saw the need for cooperative management and development of the irrigable and pasture land, and felt that fencing should not be required on the latter. Powell's major error was in discounting too heavily the capacity of the region beyond the 100th meridian and east of the mountains to produce grain, particularly wheat. It was this portion of the four States of Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota where, after 1878, there were to be so many homesteads established-homesteads which reached final entry. Here also are some of the great wheat-producing counties. One-third of the winter wheat of Kansas in 1949 was produced in counties wholly or partly west of the 100th meridian. In more than 60 years of adapting the farm pattern in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas to weather and soil conditions there were in 1950 only five of the 319 counties where the average size of farm units was 2,560 acres and those five were in the sand hills of Nebraska. Powell did not seem to realize that allowing a 2,560-acre homestead for grazing would make possible the establishment of great agricultural units through illegal procedures and his measure provided no safeguards to prevent such properties from being accumulated. Nor was he sensitive to the anti-monopoly movement in the West which, as has been seen, was trying to prevent the establishment of large estates through the adoption of rigid restrictions on the amount of land individuals could acquire from the government and which a little later was to lead to the passage of laws in some states denying aliens the right to hold land because they had been accumulating extensive properties. Powell's emphasis upon irrigation and water rights was excellent though somewhat in advance of public opinion and, indeed, of the need for irrigated land. His insistence on private ownership of the timber resources ignored European success with state forests, something that was to follow in this country. Classification was an unwelcome proposal to many who felt that under the existing system they had a better opportunity of obtaining valuable national resources than under one calling for classification in advance of disposal. Inaccurate and Fraudulent Surveys Not only did the public land need classification, it needed to be surveyed under better supervision than had been established. From the initiation of public surveys responsibility had been placed in the hands of surveyors general who contracted out to private individuals the running of the lines, establishment of corners, and |
