Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/162

152 To sum up the course of the state's policy with its school and university lands: They were at first sold to the highest bidder with a minimum price of $2.00 per acre, except for the pre-emptor, the actual settler and the purchaser of lieu lands that he himself had selected. These secured their lands for $1.25 per acre. Later the method of appraisal, usually by the county superintendent, was used with a minimum price of $1.25 per acre. This held during the decade from 1868 to 1878. Then the minimum was again raised to $2.00. Though the method of appraisal was adhered to down to 1887, it seems to have been a perfunctory proceeding, as only a very few small lots were sold at a figure higher than the minimum price. In 1887, just when vacant lands in Oregon were coming into demand, the price for all lands, that could be lowered by the legislature, was fixed at $1.25 per acre. The state board was "required" to sell at that price. Up to this time the actual settler had the preference. Throughout the whole period the intent expressed in the law was for the limitation of holdings to 320 acres. However, the facility of assignment of the certificates provided for in 1878 and the provision for deeding without limit to an assignee made the preceding limitation of the amount that could be purchased by any citizen only a hollow mockery. And more than that, it stimulated perjury so that it prevailed to a frightful degree, and subornation to this perjury became a vocation in the state.

The special features that characterized the policy of the state with its lands other than those of the common school and university grants will now be noticed.

Agricultural College Lands. Though Congress had made this grant in 1862, not until 1868 did a special commission in Oregon take steps to locate them. By 1872 the prospects of the final approval of their selections in the Klamath lake country were such that the sale of the lands was placed in the hands of the Board of Commissioners for the Sale of School and University Lands. Congress had fixed the minimum price at