Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/133

Rh ore, minerals, fertilizers, and fossils. Lessees who did not renew leases might remove their improvements or sell them to the new lessee or purchaser.

State lands in general are subject to appraisement and sale. Those containing minerals or oil or adjacent to such lands in private lands are withheld from sale. The commissioner might sell without application, but total yearly sales were limited to 200,000 acres, and this amount was not to include more than 320 acres of lands susceptible of immediate cultivation, except irrigable lands. The minimum price of such lands was $3 per acre and of lands in irrigation projects not less than $25 per acre. The terms of sale were 1 per cent of purchase price when the successful bidder was announced; 4 per cent on delivery of certificate of sale; the remainder in 38 annual payments with interest at 5 per cent. The purchaser might discharge the whole debt at any time by paying interest in advance for six months. If the purchaser failed to pay principal and interest when due, the certificate of purchase was to be forfeited.

In accord with the directions of the constitution the act of 1915 created 15 special funds to receive the moneys accruing from the sale of the public lands. These funds are as follows: (a) Permanent school fund; (b) university land fund; (c) legislative, executive, and judicial buildings fund; (d) penitentiary land fund; (e) asylum for the insane land fund; (f) schools and asylums for the deaf, dumb, and blind land fund; (g) miners’ hospital for disabled miners’ land fund; (h) normal school land fund; (i) State charitable, penal, and reformatory institutions land fund; (j) agricultural and mechanical college land fund; (k) school of mines land fund; (l) military institutes land fund; (m) county bonds land fund; (n) State land administrative land fund; (o) State land classification and appraisement fund. Of these funds perhaps all except those numbered c, d, e, and g bore either directly or indirectly on the subject of public education.

The State treasurer was directed to invest the money belonging to any of these permanent funds in United States bonds, Arizona bonds, or in bonds of the counties, municipalities, and school districts of the State, or in first mortgages on farm lands.

It will be noted that the new law increases the power of the land department. It is now authorized to lease mineral lands; to conduct investigations and experiments to determine which lands are suitable for agriculture, which may be made so by the development of water, and which are suitable for grazing purposes only. It also has power to make and file water locations and appropriations, reservoir, dam, and power sites; to control and dispose of stone and gravel and