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Show 40 COMMISSIONER INDUN AFFAIBS. and spruce, $3; hemlock and white fir, $0.75 per thousand feet board measure, Scribner rule, with provisions for an advance of stumpage rates at the end of each three years of the contract period of 12 years. This offering includes the major part of the timber remaining on allotments on the Tulalip Reservation. The 300,000,000 feet board measure on the Fort Apache Reserva-tion which was offered for sale in January, 1912, was reoffered in the autumn of 1913. One bid was received, but no sale was effected. On December 1, 1913, prices were readjusted under the contracts of the J. S. Steams Lumber Co. for timber on allotments of the Bad River Reservation. This readjustment will result in a gain of over $100,000 for the 'Bad River allottees over what they would have received at the old rates. Contracts have been approved for the sale of the timber on 154 allotments of minors and full bloods within the White Earth Indian Reservation, Mim. The timber on these allotments was exposed to great fire danger because of being intermingled with lands formerly owned by mixed bloods on which the timber had been or was being cut by private operators through titles acquired under the acts of June 21, 1906 (34 Stat. L., 353), and March 1, 1907 (34 Stat. L., 1034). Logging operations on the Bad River, Lac Courte Oreilles, Fond du Lac, and Leech Lake Reservations have been continued by the regular contractors. The amount of timber cut on each may be ascertained from the statistical appendix accompanying this report. The most important single industrial enterprise in the Indian Service is the Menominee Indian mill at Nwpit, Wis. On the Me-nominee Indian Reservation the stumpage is not sold, but the Gov-ernment manages all phases of lumber manufacture from the time the tree is severed from the stump until it is placed on the car in the form of a finished product ready for the wholesale or retail market. within the fiscal year 1914 32,520,330 feet of logs were delivered at the mill by the railroad owned by the Indians, 37,270,494 feet of lumber were produced, and 23,179,511 feet were sold. The inventory of June 30,1914, showed 40,443,793 feet of lumber on hand in the yard, with an appraised value of $581,581.74. During the fiscal year 1915 especial attention will be given to the completion of an inventory of the timber resources of the Indians. The knowledge now possessed as to the amount of timber on many large reservations is indefinite and unsatisfactory. The office is confident that a great improvement may be effected in the condition of the Indians through a wise administration of the forests embraced within the reservations occupied by them. The keynote of Indian timber administration from now on will be the industrial develop-ment of the Indians and providing the Indians with better home conditions. |
