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Show REPORT OP TRE COXMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. XXVII alresdy.spoken.- I desire here to call attention to the progress whicl~ the Indians have made in farming during the past year. Twenty.threethousand acres of new land hare been brokenby Indians this year, being 3,000 acres more than the amount broken last year. The Indians have themselves erected about 1,200 new houses, in addi-tion to a considerable number erected for them by the Government. Inspectors, special agents, and agents report farms to he in better order and the cultivation of then1 to be more intelligent and systematic, and ngrionltural tools and machinery and stock to be better protected and cared for than ever before. In many instances orchards are being p1anted;farm products are taken to market. for sale, and numerous other evidences of thrift and homelife show themselves a~nor~thge more advanced Indians. Infact, theIndian is beginning to realize that heisa man, and not an animal to be hunted and shot down by some desperado who wants his land, range, and stock. The Indians as a race in the United States are alive to the fact that tbqy are land owners and that soon they must derive a living for themselves and families by cultivat-ing the land with their own hands. I regret that I cannot report an increase in the total amount of crops harvested. On mauy reservations the protracted drought of this sea-son has been severely felt, and owing to more remote !ocations and indifferent tillage the crops of Indians have suffered rather more heavily than those of white' men in the same vicinity in the West. On reservationswhere the climatic conditions have been favorable the In-dians have made a most creditable ehowing in the quantity of produce raised. I do not anticipate that loss of crops will cause ,serious suffering With the supplies furnished br Government the great mass of the In-dians, will he amply provided, and where this is not the case timely pre-caution will be taken to guard against anything like destitution. In case of the Peoria8 and oonsolidated tribes in the Indian Territory, such provision has already been made., and authority has been granted allow-ing them to expend for subsistence supplies, to tide them over this year, $10,000 of their invested school fund, authority for such diversion of the fund being contained in their treaty of February 23,1867. THE NORTHWEST INDIAN OOMMISSION. Brief mention was made in my last annual report of the Oommission appointed to negotiate with various tribes and bands of Indians in the State of Minnesota, and the Territories of Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Washington, and the State of Oregon, under the provisions of the act of May 15, 1886 (24 Stat., p. 44), as follows : 70 enable the Secretary of the Interior to negotiate with the several tribes and bands of Chippewa Indiana in the Stete of Minnesota for auch modi6cation of exlet-ing treaties with said Iudiana and auch change -of their reservations as may be deemed desirable by aaid Indians an8 the Seoretary of the Interior, and ss to what |