Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/128

122 Receipts derived from the lease of school lands in earlier years were:

The land commission also gives the cash receipts and the earnings not received from the school lands under the Salt River project for the year ending March 15, 1915, as $13,241.10, of which $1,422.39 had been received and $11,818.71 had not. In the same way and for the same time the lands under the Tempe canal had earned $1,999.97, of which $594 had been received and $1,405.97 was still due.

As already pointed out, of the public school lands as much as 1,397,357.59 acres lie within the boundaries of the national forests. Under the enabling act the title to these lands is not vested in the State, but they are administered as a part of the national forest to which they belong, and such part of the gross income of the forest is paid the State for the common-school fund as the school land included within the forest bears to the whole of the forest. It is estimated that the part of the national forests belonging to the State makes up about one-ninth of the whole national forest area in the State and that Federal administration is more successful than it could be in State hands.

At the time of the admission of Arizona there were 1,126 leases of surveyed and unsurveyed State school lands in the national forests, covering 456,073.94 acres, at a rental of $20,048.74. Of these leases there were canceled 320, covering 191,080.60 acres, and leaving 806 leases covering 264,993.34 acres.

The leases have been paying in the last few years as follows (for schools only):

This is not all the income to the State from this source, for, as a matter of fact, the State and the counties receive in all about 46 per cent of the total gross receipts from the national forests within the State. The expenses of administration are paid by the Federal Government. The gross revenue is divided as follows: 25 per cent is