north and south. Here the yellow pine forms valuable forests with other woods such as red fir, white pine (Pinus flexilis), cypress, etc. Arizona is almost entirely treeless, except for the central mountain region, which forms an extension of the New Mexico forests northwestward nearly to the Rio Grande. There is also a little timber in the northeastern part of the State and in the southeastern part on the mountain ranges. The yellow pine here constitutes extensive forests of commercial value. FOREST RESOURCES OF THE WEST. Scattered and broken as are the wooded areas embraced within the western states, the Pacific forest represents the greatest remaining timber resource of the United States; and it will continue to increase in relative importance. Remote from the centers of population and of lumber consumption, these forests will constitute the basis of a great lumber industry long after the eastern forest shall have reached the point of slow, conservative utilization on the basis of annual reproduction. On page 284 will be found a table giving the areas of the various states, an estimate of their wooded areas, and the ratio of those areas to the total areas. From that table we reproduce some of the figures relating to the states within the Pacific forest: Standing without comment these figures seem to mean more in some cases and less in others than they actually do. The total area of the eleven states and territories is 1,177,753 square miles, of which 28.1 percent is estimated to be wooded. But the term "wooded area" is an elastic one. It means anything from hardly more than brush lands or a thin growth of inferior trees to the most magnificent forests of the globe. Thus, the large wooded area of Arizona, or Colorado, or Montana, or New Mexico, means little to the lumber industry, while the figures for California, Oregon and Washington stand for enormous resources. Balancing the estimates in the various states, offsetting worthless lands with those of enormous value, actual or potential, it would not be surprising if the 212,000,000 acres west of the eastern boundary of the Rockies should carry a quantity of timber approaching one thousand billions of feet. These forests are to remain a great national resource, not only because of their remoteness from the most important lumber consuming sections of the country, but also because they are to be preserved and protected in a large measure by the National government. Over thirtynine percent of this estimated wooded area was in the latter part of 1905 included within the forest reserves, a somewhat detailed account of which will be given in a succeeding chapter. Much of the more than 83,000,000 acres thus reserved is of scattering timber of little commercial value and set aside for the protection of watersheds and in the hope of an improvement of forest growths; but many large reserved areas, as in Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California, include some of the choicest forests of the continent. Under government control these forest resources will be guarded from fire and theft, and preserved against the day when the lessening supply of timber and the growing demand will render practicable their scientific utilization. CHAPTER XXVII. PUBLIC LAND POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES, IN ITS RELATION TO LUMBERING. By the national domain is meant the entire territory over which the United States exercises sovereignty. The public domain includes that portion of the national domain where the title to the land is, or originally was, vested in the United States. In a general way the public domain and the national domain coincide, except as to the area of the thirteen original states as delimited by their cession to the United States of their western land claims (which will be discussed later). present form these states have the following areas: In their 1 Includes 3,140 square miles lakes Erie and Ontario. Four of the states afterwards admitted were formed within the unceded boundaries of the original thirteen colonies-Kentucky, Vermont, Maine and West Virginia. Tennessee was formed from the North Carolina cession, which, however, was subject to existing private claims and to Indian rights, in amount practically equaling the cession. On November 10, 1791, Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of State, reported to Congress that the Indian titles had been extinguished to about 7,500,000 acres, and private claims already reported amounted to 8,118,6011⁄2 acres. The rest of the Indian titles were extinguished by treaty, purchase, or conquest, but the volume of reported claims grew proportionately, and Congress, by act of February 18, 1841, turned both the old claims and the lands over to the State of Tennessee, granting the State any surplus which might be left over after satisfying the claims (Public Domain, p. 83). In the annexation of Texas the State retained the title to its public lands, as explained in a subsequent portion of this chapter, so that in the following states the State, and not the United States, is the owner of the public lands: Total.... 103,040 24,504 15,682,560 5,160,960 415,505 265,923,200 Connecticut, in her deed of cession of western lands, September 13, 1786, excepted the "Western Reserve" of Connecticut in Ohio, extending from the western boundary of Pennsylvania 100 miles westward, and from the forty-first parallel north to Lake Erie. Of this tract, containing about 3,800,000 acres, about 500,000 acres, known as the 'fire lands," were donated to its citizens who suffered by fire and raids during the Revolutionary War. Of the balance about 3,000,000 acres were sold to a land company at forty cents an acre, or $1,200,000, forming the basis of the present Connecticut school fund. Both the jurisdiction and title to these lands were passed to the United States by deed of May 30, 1800, as authorized by the Connecticut Legislature on the second Thursday of May, 1800, and by Congress by act of April 28, 1800. This action was chiefly to confirm title to the land, giving the holders from Connecticut the warrant of United States patents, and this territory was, therefore, practically never a part of the public domain. Other states also made certain specific reservations in their cessions, these being chiefly provisions for military and private land claims which had been issued by the State for the benefit of existing settlements and for extinguishment of Indian titles. CESSIONS BY THE STATES. The English colonies were established under royal charters with grants of land in fee simple, though some of the charters were after ward forfeited or surrendered and the colonies became royal or crown colonies. The land grants were usually between given parallels of latitude or a given distance north and south from a certain point, bounded on the east, for most of the colonies, by the Atlantic Ocean, with the western boundaries necessarily somewhat vague because of the limited and inaccurate geographical knowledge of the period, but usually covering westward to the "South Sea" or Pacific Ocean, though, of course, practically confined to the western limits of British territory, or the Mississippi River. These charter grants were in most cases the bases of colonial claims to western lands or "back lands," though the claims of New York were based on Indian purchases, and Virginia, in addition to charter titles, claimed a large portion of northwestern territory on the basis of conquest and occupancy based upon the expedition of General George R. Clarke to the Illinois country. The northern and southern extent of the various charter grants often overlapped, causing much confusion. By proclamation King George III restricted the colonial limits of Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut to the eastern watershed of the Allegheny Mountains. By this proclamation of 1763 the western lands were set apart as "Crown lands," following the treaty of Paris in the same year, dividing the territory acquired from France and Spain into four provinces: Quebec, East Florida, West Florida and Grenada. All the lands which were not included within these provinces nor within those granted to the Hudson Bay Company were reserved to the use of the Indians, and the colonies were forbidden to make purchase or settlement without royal permission. The Provincial governors were authorized to issue land warrants in this territory only where they were awarded by the Crown for services in the French and Indian War. Various land companies were formed and secured lands in this territory, but in each instance petitioned direct to the Crown and not to any Colonial government. Among these were the Ohio Company, 1748, which secured 600,000 acres on the Ohio River; The Loyal Company, 1749, which obtained a grant for 800,000 acres of land (Perkins' Western Annals, p. 50); The Greenbrier Company, 1757, which obtained a grant for 100,000 acres. After the treaty of Paris in 1763 a number of other companies secured concessions. Among them were the Walpole Company, 1766, which in 1772 obtained a grant of 2,500,000 acres of land east of the Scioto River between latitudes 38 and 42 degrees north; the North Carolina and Pennsylvania Company, 1775, and the Mississippi Company, 1769. |