Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/130

124 Of the remaining school lands, 168,707.62 acres are appropriated by United States entry, and so subject to indemnity; 76,164.11 acres are reported as in other reservations, and 3,134,555.20 acres as unsurveyed and unreserved, but the land commission is of the opinion that these lands when available will average quite as high in value as those now in place. The total withdrawal for survey up to January 1, 1917, amounted to 4,346,145 acres.

Although the public schools possess some very valuable tracts of land, like the 25,000 acres under the Salt River and Yuma Government projects and many other tracts which fall within well-settled and well-developed districts, it will be found on comparing these lands with the institutional lands, that their average value is in general low. This is because large sections fall in the mountains and in localities that possess no advantages or possibilities except for grazing, while some tracts are occasionally totally barren.

It is now possible to turn from the public-school lands to the institutional lands. The amount of these lands, and the definite purpose to which each allotment has been assigned, has been considered already.

It remains only to review briefly the progress made in selecting these lands from the public domain. The lands granted the State for institutions by the enabling act amounted to 2,350,000 acres, and by the terms of the act they were to be selected by a commission composed of the governor, the surveyor general, or some other person acting with the authority of that officer, and the attorney general. To meet the requirements of the law the chairman of the State land commission has performed the duties of the surveyor general. Up to December 1, 1914, the date of his first report, formal selection had been made of 636,661.16 acres, of which patents for 289,358.12 acres had been issued, while an additional amount of 3,993,235 acres had been withdrawn from settlement for survey and selection, so that in all the commission has initiated the State’s claim on a total of 4,629,896.16 acres. With the selection of these institutional lands goes also the selection of indemnity public-school lands, “to reimburse the common-school grant for such portions of the place lands granted for that purpose as have been or may hereafter be alienated by settlers prior to the survey of the land or prior to the rights of the State accruing.” On December 1, 1914, there had been thus alienated 168,707.62 acres, “and this amount, as the public land surveys go forward, will increase.”

In selecting these institutional lands and withdrawing them from survey the principle has been followed that they should have either a