Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 February 1900 — A Defect in Oil Leases. [ARTICLE]

A Defect in Oil Leases.

I A prominent land owner o^ ■ Rensselaer who has himself lisI toned, to his sorrow to the siren ■ song of the oil and gas companies ■ land leasing representatives tells ■ us that these leases, or the ones he I was oaught up on and probably I all of them, conceal a Senegambian lof considerable dimensions in the I wood-pile. The leases provide I that within a certain P specified I time the lessees shall drill wells on I the land, that one eighth of the I product, if oil is discovered shall be the property of the owner of the land. But though the leases provide when the wells shall be

drilled, they say nothing about when they shall be operated after they are drilled, and there is nothing to prevent the companies or their assigns from plugging up the wells and leaving them in that condition, for years if they want to. People who give oil leases should see that they provide for the wells to be operated if oil is found. As they now are* the land owner may not even Know whether oil is found at all or not. When the oil well is finished tha operators can plug it up and leave and that is all the land owners know about it