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Show PROPOSED LEASING LAW. In the West they arc much stirred up over the proposition to tokc from the unreserved, unappropriated public (Fomain reserved for settlers a vast area of 300,000,000 acres and place it in the Forest Service and lease it out for fencing and grazing for the big cattle barons and others whose interests inter-ests arc being crowded by encroachments encroach-ments of the homesteaders. This would shut out settlers from a pretty big strip of country well, equivalent to an area 200 miles wide and over 2,000 miles long. This land is not included in the; lands concerned in the regulation of streams or conservation con-servation of timber supply. This vast area has never been included in the Forest Reserves; it is part of the public pub-lic domain awaiting settlement. The agricultural lands of the public domain belong not to the people of the West alone; they belong to the citizens of every -state in the Union. Anybody may go out there, take up ai homestead of 160 acres, and make a home in the manner the law specifics. The act of June 4, 1897, which set aside timtbercd "areas and mountain watersheds for Forest Reserves specifically spe-cifically and distinctly forbade the including in-cluding of lands good only for other purposes. The idea was that the interest in-terest of the settlers should have firsc consideration. Land unavailable for timber protection or rofoncstration or for conserving the flow of streams was to be kept open for farms and homes and communities. Under the proposed "leasing policy ' any big cattle magnate may lease ami fence up for ten years as much as 10,-000 10,-000 acres; his friends may lease next door to him 10,000 more, and another friend the next, 'and so on. It is not likely that any settler H would care to undertake the rcspon- H sibility of taking a family upon a M homestead within such inclosurc; his M life would be a sultry one at best. M But the settler is not likely to have H this opportunity, for if the leasehold M has had one penny over $100 spent on M it by the cattle owner (which amount H is easily covered by the fence), the H lessee has a right to debar the settler M from entering. Globe-Democrat. H 4 H |