| Show FENCING SCHOOL LANDS those who have enclosed school sections to be prosecuted A case of special interest to many people ain this locality because of the hardship the carrying out of the policy will involve was brought before commissioner pierce today to day two residents of 0 brighton precinct in salt lake county were placed under arrest on the charge of unlawfully FENCING THE TEE PUBLIC DOMAIN the complaint was made by W E D barnett special agent of the united states general land lad office for the section of country embraced in utah southern wyoming and hailey and blackfoot districts idaho the defendants were andrew jensen jense and niels andersen AD dersen and tile the land they were accused of fencing was some acres of the south half of section 16 township I 1 south of range I 1 west salt lake base meridian and located about six miles west of this city cabout about three 3 ears ago mr andersen one of fit the defendants went on to tile the land in question which is part of a school seo tion having purchased the improvements thereon from joseph lingo who gave a quit blaim deed he cultivated a portion of the ground and cleared more and abd has PLANTED AND RAISED CROPS each year since last season he secured the services ot of te assist him and promised to allow mr jensen part of the land for his own use the premises being unenclosed mr Ander sens crops suffered considerably from the depredations of stray stock so in order to protect himself hethie spring erected a fence fence of cedar posts and wire going to a good deal of expense for a poor man such as he be is he also has a small house on the place and has improved the land considerably 1 in the examination on the tae abar charge made today to day mr chase a clerk in t the e land office in this city was the first witness and to the of the land on which the defendants were and also that two pieces on the south south half of section 16 one containing about and the other about acres had been fenced in mr barnett testified that he had been instructed by the interior department to prosecute all cases where government land had been enclosed and that this was a case of that class on may 29 he be had examined the land in I 1 question an ana a fou found d that the defendants had fenced in about acres and were cultivating it for farming land a small house had also been erected on the place W witness had bad been specially instructed st ed ted by the department to remove the fences FROM SCHOOL SECTIONS mrs mary stephens who lived on the section contiguous to that occupied aed by the defendants testified to baving having seen them engaged in putting up the fence last march the commissioner read the sections sect ious of law bearing on the subject in which sections 16 and 36 86 in the territories were reserved as school lands and were not subject to entry and also a section which provides for the punishment of those who unlawfully fully enclose the public domain at fixing the maximum penalty and imprisonment for one year and 1000 fine the defendant defend ant andersen instated stated that he had fenced in the land in in question during this spring he had considerably improved the land during darin his occupancy of it which he jun understood derst oad could continue centi nue till the territory became a state when ne he move off or have the opportunity of pur chasi ngit it chehad not the slightest ha intention of breaking the law and could not understand that he had done so it was understood that title to school sections could not be acquired in the territory but bat settlers were allowed to cultivate it and it would be A FOOLISH IDEA to think this could be done without allowing it to be fenced to protect the crops from stock that was permitted to roam about he protested that he had done no wrong in the case that the government was not injured but bene fitted by having the land brought into cultivation and made mad e more valuable till such time as it was put on the market that it was not good policy to compel settlers to take down their fences and thus permit the land to go uncultivated and depreciate in value the commissioner said that under the circumstances it appeared there had been a violation of the law the defendant jensen was only hired to assist in the and iwas therefore discharged the defendant niels anderson was ordered to give ball bail in the sum of to await the action of the grand djury jury there are in this county quite quit e a number nu in ber of persons who occupy school sc hool lands and if this rule is to be effo enforced iced ili 14 wil will work I 1 A GREAT HARDSHIP on many poor people the law as laid down in this case permits a man to occupy and work the school lauds lands but does not allow him to put up a fence to protect his bis crops from damage of the real intent of the ahe law there can be no doubt it was to prevent the enclosing of large lare tracts of land as was done in wyoming for instance for grazing purposes and thus excluding actual settlers but none of the reasons good in those cases will app apply ay in this it is a fact that the occupancy of the school sections has been or of material benefit to settlers instead of the reverse and a test should be made as to whether the law is really applicable to such cases at any rate there is no doubt that such an application would be a bad public policy productive of nothing but evir evil |
