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Show I REPORT OF TEE CO?IMIS%IOSER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 57 estimated value of the timber on the allotment, the same to be dedncted from the purchase price thereof. Each allottee will thus he assured of some return every year from his timber, until it is cut and removed. So far as this office has been adrised, the operations of Messrs. Cush-way & Co. havebeen eminently snccessful iogiving the Indians employ-ment and thus providing them means of subsistence. Lieut. Mercer, ! the acting agent for the La Pointe Agency, has uuiformly reported the success of the plan, and the office is encouraged to believe that great benefit will result to the Indians from the operations of this firm on their reservation. Bad River Reservation, Wis.-Until recently the condition of the Chip-pewas on the Baa River Eeservatioi~w as as deplorable as that of the Lac du Flambeau Chippewas prior to the granting of authority for the sale of their timber to Messrs. Cushway & 00. October 18, 1893, Lieut,. Mercer, acting agent, translr~itted to this office apetitionnumer-ously signed by the Indians of the Bad River Reservation, praying that a proposition made to them by J. S. Steams, for the purchase of the timber on their respective allotments, and the dead timber standing or fallen on the unallotted lands of their reservation, be acc,epted by the Government, the prices offered being considered both by Lieut. Mercer and the Indians as very advantageous. This proposition wan similar to that made by Cushway & Co. for the purchaseof timber on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation, the difter-ence being in the variety of timber a-g reed to be ~urchaseda nd the A pices. These prices were as follows: Per M feet. Shingle timber ............................................. $0.65 Merchantable dead pine .................................... 2.00 Merchantable green white pine .............................. Green Norway pins. ........................................ Green or sound hemlock ................................... Merahantable besa wood .................................... Merohanzabln elm.. ......................................... Merchantablemaple ........................................ Merchantable birch.. ....................................... Merchantable oak. .......................................... Acting Agent Mercer stated that there were nndoubtedly 50,000,000 feet of timber on the reservation that had recently been burned, and a great amount of other dead timber, such as windfalls, the greater part of which if left uncut and out of the water would not pay t,he cost of removal; also that the Indians on the reservation were practically with-out work, and most of t,hem without provisions, to carry them through the winter, and t,hat the prices oilered by Mr. Stearns were very much higher than those offered by a number of other lumber dealers in the vicinity of the reservation to whom he had 'pplied. This office there- -fore reported to the Department that if the Department should con-clude to make additional allotments to the Indians on the Bad River and Lac du Flambeau reservations, as recommended in office reports of |