Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 77.djvu/334

328 all of the government lands known to contain valuable phosphate rock are now withdrawn from entry. A law that would provide a leasing system for the phosphate deposits, together with a provision for the separation of the surface and mineral rights as is already provided for in the case of coal, would seem to meet the need of promoting the development of these deposits and their utilization in the agricultural lands of the west. If it is thought desirable to discourage the exportation of phosphate rock and the saving of it for our own lands, this purpose could be accomplished by conditions in the lease granted by the government to its lessees. Of course, under the constitution the government could not tax and could not prohibit the exportation of phosphate, but as proprietor and owner of the lands in which the phosphate is deposited it could impose conditions upon the kind of sales, whether foreign or domestic, which the lessees might make of the phosphate mined.

The tonnage represented by the phosphate lands in government ownership is very great, but the lesson has been learned in the case of such lands that have passed into private ownership in South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee that the phosphate deposits there are in no sense inexhaustible. Moreover, it is also well understood that in the process of mining phosphate, as it has been pursued, much of the lower grade of phosphate rock, which will eventually all be needed has been wasted beyond recovery. Such wasteful methods can easily be prevented, so far as the government land is concerned, by conditions inserted in the leases.

Prior to March 4, 1909, there had been, on the recommendation of the reclamation service, withdrawn from agricultural entry, because they were regarded as useful for power sites which ought not to be disposed of as agricultural lands, tracts amounting to about 4,000,000 acres. The withdrawals were hastily made and included a great deal of land that was not useful for power sites. They were intended to include the power sites on twenty-nine rivers in nine states. Since that time 3,475,442 acres have been restored for settlement of the original 4,000,000, because they do not contain power sites; and meantime there have been newly withdrawn 1,245,892 acres on vacant public land and 211,007 acres on entered public land, or a total of 1,456,899 acres. These withdrawals made from time to time cover all the power sites included in the first withdrawals, and many more, on 135 rivers and in 11 states.

The disposition of these power sites involves one of the most difficult questions presented in carrying out practical conservation. The forest service, under a power found in the statute, has leased a number of these power sites in forest reserves by revocable leases, but no such power exists with respect to power sites that are not located within forest