Rensselaer Republican, Volume 12, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 November 1879 — Report of the General Land Offoce. [ARTICLE]

Report of the General Land Offoce.

WisanHßOi, November 11. The annual report of the General Land Office has been handed in to the Secretary of the Interior. It shows that daring the fiscal year ended June SO, last, 9,333,353 acres of public lands were disposed of, and 9,484,996 acres were surveyed in addition to the 734,591,236 acres previously surveyed. The total number of acres o*f public domain ■till unsurveyed is about 1,081,000,000. The disposals were mainly as follows: Homestead entries, 5,260,111 acres; timber-culture entries, 2,766,574 acres; cash entries, 622,574 acres (including 166,9% acres entered under Desert Land law)*grants to railroads, 278,334 acres; swamp lands patented to States, 75,388 acres; other grants to States, 186,392 acres. ' The amount of land surveyed the last fiscal year exceeds by 414,769 acres the total area surveyed in the preceding twelve months, and while the report shows a falling off of some 778,000 acres in cash sales, the State selections, scrip locations and lands patented for railroad grants, the increase in the area taken up by settlers under the Homestead and Timber-Culture laws has been sufficient not only to counterbalance this falling off, but to make the aggregate disposals for the year greater by 647,204 acres than the total for the previous year. The increase in homestead entries was 841,766 acres; and in timber-culture entries 896,139 acres. Owing to the existing laws for the disposal of public lands for homesteads and timber culture it is shown that during the last fiscal year, with a larger disposal of land, there was received from all sources $1,883,113, less by $139,418 than the amount received during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1878. Referring to the absentee Shawnee lands, and the Miami lands in Kansas, legislation is recommended to provide for the disposing of. such portions thereof as remain vacant, for the rear son that frequent application is made for permission to enter these tracts by parties occupying them, which, in absence of the proper legislation, oanuot be given. Owing to the general opinion that the present appraisement of the Detroit Arsenal grounds with the improvements, made under the act of Congress of March 3, 1875, is too high, respiting in few sales being made, the report recommends that a new appraisement be made, and after the lots are offered at public sale that any remaining unsold be disposed of at private sale at nol less than the appraised value. The Acting Commissioner reports that under the various acts of the For-ty-fifth Congress and with the aid of the appropriation of $40,000 granted last March for the protection of timber and the public lands, efforts have been continued to suppress depredations, but they are yet extensive, and the interests of the Government and those of the people now residing or who may desire to settle in the region of public timbered lands, require that they should be still pursued with unremitting earnestness and vigor. In Arkansas alone the annual loss to the Government by the destruction of valuable timber is estimated at not less than $500,000. A large amount of lumber has been recovered and considerable sums of money received as compromises on suits brought by the Government against timber depredators, and many other suits are still pending. In Michigan and elsewhere along the northern National boundary line extensive depredations are reported to have been committed upon our public timber lands by Canadians. These cases are now under investigation. The powers of the Department are so enfeebled by the limited appropriations for detecting anil punishing timber trespassers that but a tithe oi the plunder and destruction of timber on the public domain can now be prevented, and there is a great necessity for more prompt and vigorous? action than the Government has heretofore taken forthe protection of its interests. : -, In conclusion the Acting Commissioner adverts to the necessity of employing a large number of clerks, and embracing among them men of experi ence and ability, and in this connection he calls attention to the insufficiency of the existing provisions to meet the requirements of this branch of the public service. He says: “It is certainly time that adequate measures were adopted to bring this office into a proper condition for discharging promptly and efficiently .the difficult and important duties devolving upon it under the laws of Congress.” -