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Show WESTERN PUBLIC LAND FRAUDS. Some one has sent us an extract from the Congressional Con-gressional Record, containing sentences from a speech delivered in Congress by Senator Berry of Arkansas, on "Frauds Perpetrated in Western States" by talcing up lands under the desert land act, under the commutation clause of the homestead home-stead act, and quotes the Secretary of the Interior as saying that the frauds committed under these acts "are perfectly appalling." And Senator Ber-ry Ber-ry "cites case after case where lands have been procured from the Government, where thousands of acres are held by single individuals or by corporations cor-porations upon which they aie grazing sheep and cattle to-day." That is a fearful indictment is it not? Nothing pleases the average Eastern Senator so much as to think he has found something which looks on its face like a swindle on tho part of Western men. On the average Westerr 'lesert lands scanty scan-ty grasses and herbage are found. Stockmen insist in-sist that it requires from 16 to 24 acres of such land to support one steer. So if Senator Berry had been sharp, had come West and taken up 160 acres under, say the desert land act, and had settled down to stock raising he would, had there been a spring on the land with water enough to supply drinking water for his stock, might, perhaps, per-haps, have kopt a herd of ten animals on the whole tract. Still he would have paid as much for his land as did his father for the same amount of land in Arkansas, land covered, perhaps, with a black walnut forest, which his father had to clear off and burn. Now, as to the large tracts. If Senator Berry would come West he would discover that those lands are practically worthless without water for Irrigation. To obtain the water often vast expenditures ex-penditures are needed. No men, no company can afford to go to that expense for 160 or ten times 160 acres of land. To convert the desert Into fruitful fields is really a creation and one, too, which had Senator Berry a fortune, he would fight shy of the proposition. Again, when it comes tQ what he calls timber lands, in nine cases out of ten the growth Is merely juniper or scrubby pine, fit only for fuel or light timber for mining, an acre of which. burned into charcoal would not supply a modern furnace with fuel for three days. Hence the Senator's Sen-ator's anguish over the swindles that have been perpetrated when figured down to cold facts, amounts, on his part, and on the part of the Secretary Sec-retary of the Interior, to simple Ignorance of the subject he essayed to discuss. ( |