Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/77

Rh proper supply of water there are millions of acres which can be cultivated with a certainty of liberal profits.

The governor suggests that some provisions of the existing timber laws of the United States are embarrassing to the people and a great hinderance to the improvement of the Territory, and that while the interests of the future demand that the forests on the public domain should be protected, something should be done in the interests of those engaged in opening up the new portions of the country. He suggests that the laws relating to timber and timber lands be so modified as—

1st. To insure to settlers, wherever their numbers are sufficient to warrant the survey, the opportunity to purchase timber lands in small tracts and at fair prices, graded and classified within fixed maxima and minima according to relative value.

2d. To allow, in districts where surveys have not been made and lands cannot be purchased, the cutting of necessary timber, at moderate rates for stumpage and under proper regulations, for other than the personal use of those cutting it, that is, for the purchase and use within the Territory of any resident thereof, or of any person or corporation non-resident, yet engaged in making improvements therein.

3d. To prohibit, under any circumstances or conditions, the cutting or removing or the causing to be cut or removed from the public lands of this region, any green timber, of whatever size, where sound, dead timber, falling or standing, and suitable for the purpose, can be had.

4th. To grant the freest possible use of any fallen timber wherever found.

5th. To afford yet greater security against forest fires by enactment of more stringent laws, with severe penalties against carelessness in the kindling of fires and against the neglect to extinguish fires already kindled which have served their lawful purpose. The governor remarks that while much destruction of timber on the public lands has resulted from the cupidity and reckless waste of persons using and speculating on the products of our forests, all these depredations combined have been as nothing compared with the waste by fires.

The governor remarks that the surveys of the public lands lag behind the public demand, and expresses the hope that Congress will remove a source of embarrassment to the people by making more liberal provisions for their survey. He also urges that the existing laws of the United States relative to the disposal of the public lands are not suited to the requirements of the territory, for the reason that they do not provide against a monopoly of the water-courses by the few who locate upon the borders of the streams. The necessity for irrigating the soil to make it productive seems to require that some system for disposing of the public lands should be devised by which the water of the streams can be made available to those who may desire to cultivate lands by irrigation. Under the present system the whole Territory will, in time,