| OCR Text |
Show REPORT OF THE COMMI8SIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. 71 o5ce that Superintendent Butler should proceed with his surveys, plans, and estimates for the various system of irrigation, adapting them where practicable and where the cost would not be considerably increased to the allotments already made, with the understanding that when these systems shall have been located and their construction determined upon, and not before, the allotments shall be revised so as to give the Indians as far as practicable the lands covered by the ditches. Superintendent Butler was so advised July 9, 1900, and directed to proceed with the work of preparing plans and. estimates for a system of irrigation which will be capable of irrigating a snf-ficient quantity of land for the use of all the Indians on the reserva-tion. LOGGING ON INDIAN RESERVATIONS. Chippewa Reservations, Idinn.-The Indian appropriation act approved March 1,1899 (30 Stats., 924), authorized and directed the Secretary of the Interior-to muse an investigation by an Indian inspector and a special Indian agent of the alleged cutting of green timber under contracts for cutting "dead and down" on the Chippewa ceded and diminished reservations in the State of Minnesota, and also whether the present plan of estimating and examining timber of said lands and sale thereof is the best that mn be devised for protection of the interests of said Indians; and also, in his discretion, to suspend the further estimating, appra~ainge, xamining, and cutting of timber and the sale of the same, and also suspend the aale of the lands in mid reservation. Acting under this authority of law the Department, March 30,1899, directed this office to suspend all operations relative to the cutting or sale of timber from the diminished reserves of the Chippewa Indians in the State of Minnesota. Also by letter of the same date the Depart-ment directed the Commissioner of the General Land Office-to suspend all further operations touching the estimating, apprmsing, examiniw, and cutting of timber, as well as the letting of further logging contracts on the ceded Chippewa Indian lands in the State of Minnesota and the sales of lands in that reser-vation. As these directions applied to all Chippewa reservations within the State of Minnesota, and as they have not been revoked or modified, no logging operations were conducted during the past year on any of the Chippewa reservations in the State of Minnesota. La Pointe Agenoy, Wig.-Sixty-ninc contracts for the sale of timber to J. H. Cushway & Co., from allotments on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation, were approved under the authority granted in 1892. Under the authority granted Justus S. Stearns in 1893 to purchase timber from the allottees on the Bad River Keservation one contract was approved. The logging operations on these reservations have been satisfactorily conducted. On July 28, 1897, the President granted authority for the sale of |
