Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1875.djvu/5

 REPORT

OF

, October 31, 1875,

I have the honor to submit, for your consideration, the annual report of this Department, accompanied by the reports of the several Bureaus and institutions which, by law, are placed under its supervision.

PUBLIC LANDS.

During the year ending June 30, 1875, public lands were disposed of as follows:

A quantity less by 2,459,001.03 acres than that disposed of the preceding year.

The cash receipts were $1,779,616.27; a sum less by $690,322.23 than that received the previous year.

During the year 20,077,531.80 acres were surveyed, making, with the quantity previously surveyed, 680,253,094.21 acres, leaving yet to be surveyed 1,154,471,62.79 acres.

The quantity of land disposed of under the homestead and timber-culture laws was less by about a million and a half acres than that so disposed of the year immediately preceding. This result is attributed, and no doubt correctly, by the Commissioner of the General Land-Office, to the grasshopper plague, the drought, and the consequent 656