OCR Text |
Show CmCl'LAU OS CITTI.XG TIMBER We hare before us a circular relative to cutting timber, received by General Maxwell, Land Office Register of this Territory, from tbe General Land Office, Of-fice, Washington, D. 0., which he has courteously placed in our hands. It is a ldresred to the Register and Receiver, Receiv-er, and bears date December 21, 1S55, but its provisions are still in force. It sas in the commencement : The Secretary of the Interior has concluded to change the present system sys-tem of timber agencies, and to devolve the duties connected therewith upon the ollieers of the local land districts. By his direction, therefore, you will, upon the receipt of these instructions, take charge of the timber business within the limits of your laud district, as a part of the general duties of your office ; aud it i accordingly hereby assigned as-signed to yv-u as such, with the under-ptanding under-ptanding that, hereafter, it is to be considered and held as a proper incident inci-dent to, and in fact a part of, your general duties, covered and satisfied by the salary which the law provides for your respective offices. Following this comes an opinion by Attorney General Wirt, given May 27th, 1S21 ; one by Attorney General Taney, given August 22nd, 1S33; and one by Attorney General Masou, given July 16th, 1815; in which they hold that the United States have full authority author-ity over all timber lands on the public domain, and can pursue by action of trespass by way of punishment, the Bame as individuals, all trespassers on public lands who cut timber. Attorney Attor-ney General Mason says : When the right of pre-emption ex ists, the settler who has complied with the provisions of the act of 4th September, Sep-tember, 1841, has a right of occupancy for twelve months, within which he may perfect his title by paying the minimum price of the land. Like the settlers under the armed occupation act, his right is inchoate only ; and he has only those rights of property which are necessary to the perfecting of his title. He may clear the land, build on it, and enclose it with a view to cultivation. culti-vation. For these purposes he may use or destroy any trees which may be necessary, but within these restrictions, and necessary fire-wood, he y confined. When a trespass of this character is committed on swamp lauds, or those rendered unfit for cultivation by overflow, over-flow, the Register and Receiver aie to notify the Governor of the State; but with timber on lands of this description Utah is not overburthened. Settlers have a right to use or destroy de-stroy trees in clearing roads, construct ing bridges, or makiug improvements on homesteads. Timber cut on public lands by trespassers is to be seized and said at auction. There are several other provisions in the ciicu!ar, which beare the signature of Thomas A. Hendricks, who was Commissioner in 1S55; but those noted are the most important. This is the law; but it is an old law made for the protection of bona fide settlers as well as Government property, proper-ty, and directed against peculators. It was enacted with more especial reference to the then western prairie States, where there were large tracts of timber easily got at. It has never been applied west of the Missouri river, . eo far as wc have learned; Wnat would have been, and what would be, its effect if practically enforced in such a country as Utah? In the first place, settlement would have been and would be simply an impossibility. im-possibility. Can anybody find twenty acres of timber land in Utah Territory that could be cultivated ? The timber is on the mountains, difficult of access; and instead of offering great inducements induce-ments to speculators, it costa more to make roads to it than its entire value would be is the level wooded country - of the east. Were a man to pre-empt a quarter section in most of the timber land in this the great west, the cost of getting to it would in most cases be infinitely greater than the entire value of the timber; and when it was all cut the land on which it grew would be utterly valueless, unless it contained minerals, and then the mining laws might interfere inter-fere with his pre-emption claim. In most parts of the west timber is the only reliance for fuel; and when a man and a team travel from fifteen to thirty miles each way for it, and occupy from two to four days in getting a load, it is dear-earned by the labor alone. The mountain growth of timber in the west is an absolute necessity for the settlements settle-ments formed in the valleys, for without with-out them the land in the valleys would not be worth a cent an acre to the Government. No single man preempting pre-empting a quarter section in the mountains, moun-tains, for the timber alone, could afford to make a road up a wild, rugged canon to it, and he would not be willing to make it for his neighbors; and as such roads have to be kept in repair while being u.-ed, who would mako the repairs? re-pairs? Would Government? If. so, its nominal price of a dollar arid a quarter quar-ter per acre would soon be exhausted in repairing canon roads. These roads in most cases would cea.-e to bo of any value when the limber wa exliauslcd, utile" niinc-rnlf should rx discovered in the mtunla.us under the timber, when they might be useful in its t'ansportation. But of what value would the minerals be without agricultural agri-cultural lands cultivated within reasonable reason-able distance '. furnish supplies? And here again we repeat, that the strict application of this law in the west would render the formation of settlements settle-ments an impossibility; would uukc the agricultural lands valueless to Government; Gov-ernment; and, as a consequence, would render the vast mineral deposits of the great west equally valueless. The free use of the timber in the mountains is as necessary to western settlers as the free u-e of the rivers for irrigation to make the land cultivatable. . Withotft the latter, crops to support a population popula-tion would be impossible ; without the former, buildings, fences,fire-wood, and the thoasand and one necessaries into which tijiber enters would be equally impossible. Apply the law in the Truckee region ; enforce it in the Black Hills; bring the timbered mountains in the region of the head wators of Bear River under it, and the further settlement of the great west would be paralyzed it would be compelled to stop. Had the law been applied to the Great Basin, Nevada, Montana and Wyoming as well as Utah would to-day be the Great Desert it' was when the Mormons reached it twenty-three years ago. For these reasons, aud others which might be advanced, we cannot think the Land Commissioner would enforce such law if he properly understood the case, as it would defeat its own purpose. pur-pose. It is evidently designed to protect pro-tect the settler ; its close application in the west, where the mountains alone have timber and the val'eys are bare of it, would drive the settler from tbe west, and compel him to seek a location loca-tion where habitable existence would be possible. |