Senator WARREN. That would not come within agriculture. Senator POINDEXTER. Yes; just the same as the one we have been discussing. It is in the Mount Baker Forest Reserve.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a separate bill, not an amendment to this appropriation bill.

Senator POINDEXTER. Yes; it is a separate bill.

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. Proposed as an amendment to this agricultural bill?

Senator POINDEXTER. No; not proposed as an amendment but as a separate bill. It could, however, be considered in connection with the agricultural bill.

The CHAIRMAN. We will take that up later.

STATEMENT OF HON. WESLEY L. JONES, A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON.

WOOD DISTILLATION.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Jones, we have been considering the amendment proposed increasing from $65,000 to $75,000 the appropriation with reference to wood distillation. Perhaps that has already been covered fully.

Senator JONES. That was one matter that I was very much interested in. I have a letter from the department with regard to it. The CHAIRMAN. The matter has been suggested already, and I think that as it stands it is all right.

Senator JONES. Very well; if the increase will be permitted Senator WARREN. The idea was to increase the amount of the appropriation and then specify not exceeding that amount. Senator JONES. What do you mean by "specify"?

Senator WARREN. Not exceeding that amount-using the language as near as we can.

Senator JONES. The Secretary simply suggests that it would increase the appropriation from sixty to seventy-five thousand. That will accomplish what we are after without going into any specifications. I was afraid you might specify me out of court. He says in his letter:

This end can best be attained if the amount is added to the present agricultural appropriation bill, in lines 1 to 6, page 46, as it is now before the Senate committee, since there is now sufficient authority of law to cooperate with the University of Washington, and the only difficulty lies in the lack of money. If the amount is added to the present bill it will be used in cooperation with the university.

Senator WARREN. We had decided before you came in-and you spoke to me the other day about it-to put it in only under that head.

Senator JONES. I think that would be all that is necessary. There is another amendment that I offered. I do not know whether it has been taken up yet. It is with reference to logged-off land, "studying the methods of clearing off logged-off lands,"" etc. will say that I offered that at the request of one of the House Members; it was put in the original bill in the House, and I understand it went out on a point of order.

I

Senator WARREN. Do you think you need $10,000? Would not $5,000 answer? I think we would stand a much better chance with that in conference.

Senator JONES. I thought possibly there would be no trouble about putting it in as we had it there.

The CHAIRMAN. The House committee reported in favor of $5,000.

Senator JONES. They have, favorably. You might make some concession and cut down to $5,000 if you put in the ten thousand. But I would be satisfied with $5,000, as far as I am concerned.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything in particular that you desire to call to the attention of the committee?

Senator JONES. No, sir; I thought it having been reported in the House favorably, instead of going out on a point of order, there would be no trouble about it.

MOUNT RAINIER ROAD IN NATIONAL PARK.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything further that you desire to suggest?

Senator JONES. I am interested in this proposition of a road in the national park—the Mount Rainier National Park. I think that is a very urgent matter, and I hope the committee will be able to help us out there.

Senator WARREN. I want to say frankly that I called the matter up with Mr. Warburton, but I did not go very far with it, he was so completely of the idea that it must be a macadamized road. I looked it up the other day and find that we have bills appropriating up into the millions for roads, introduced by various parties. There are thousands of miles in the forests that ought to be built, and there are several hundreds of them that, like this, lead right into parks. For instance, in the Yellowstone Park. I was over those roads and examined them last summer. They go about 27 miles in the forest reserve. The county has built up a magnificent road, and we have got an approach through there. If we could get $10,000, or even less, it would be satisfactory. Then on the south they run down, first, through a forest reserve, and then through a game preserve some 30 or 40 miles, but there are no bridges; they have to wade the streams.

Then there is the Crater National Park. That is about 40 miles from the present railroad. That is a forest reserve, and it is a question whether we would destroy the whole proposition of expending money in forests if we insist on so much for so short a road. I was wondering if we could not build a corduroy road there to begin with. Senator JONES. Of course, we have a road there. The road has been fairly good until this last year, when it was practically destroyed. In that climate where there is a good deal of rain in certain seasons an ordinary road is more apt to be destroyed.

Senator WARREN. Does that apply to the Crater Park?

Senator CHAMBERLAIN. This road that he is speaking of is along the stream and the sun never strikes it.

Senator WARREN. I am speaking of the Yellowstone Park. That road is right along the stream.

Senator JONES. Of course, this is an entirely different climate from what it is in the Yellowstone. This part of the road is practically on a level with Tacoma and is not up on the side of the mountain at all. Senator WARREN. You understand that if you make that proposition in the sundry civil bill that the Government shall do it on ae

count of the park the people would say at once that it was for tourists, etc. If you make it a forest-fire road trail proposition, a question will be asked right away, What is the use for the Government to require a $10,000-a-mile road? I am speaking now of the difficulty of legislation and not as against the desirability of having the work done.

Senator JONES. I can see some difficulties probably in a legislative way, but this is a matter of the very greatest importance. The situation is this: The Government wants to get people into the park and the Government has built a good road from the boundary line of the park up to the mountain and the county built up to the edge of the forest reserve a good road. Now, there is a stretch that the Government has control of entirely.

Senator WARREN. And it is entirely within the Government's province to associate it with an appropriation to have the park enlarged, but the Government would have to do it as a tourist-park investment and not a forest investment.

Senator JONES. I am perfectly willing to do that. That is my idea about it. It is really an adjunct to the park. It is not for the benefit of the forest rangers, or anything of that kind. It is part of the Government national park road, and that is the basis on which I was urging it, and I hope you will be able to put it in on that basis, because it is very important.

The CHAIRMAN. Is there anything else that you desire to say?
Senator JONES. That is all.

STATEMENT OF HON. COE I. CRAWFORD, A SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA.

SURVEY AND LISTING OF LANDS IN FOREST RESERVES.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Crawford, your amendment is our Calendar No. 61.

Senator CRAWFORD. Mr. Chairman, I will explain to the subcommittee that this matter was brought to my attention in this way. I had a letter which impressed me very much, from a settler out in the Black Hills district-a Mr. Wright-who wrote very intelligently and in an impressive way. I am sorry I have not his letter with me. I sent it over to the Department of the Interior, and they considered it more properly a matter for the Department of Agriculture, and sent it there. A Mr. Hays, whose letter is in the papers I submitted to the committee, wrote me that the matter concerning which Mr. Wright wrote was being investigated. It seems that in these mountainous sections like the Black Hills, where in the valleys they are irregular in shape and contour, there are strips of land suitable for agriculture, and particularly in sections that are within these forest reserves. But from time to time lists are made of those forests more suitable to agricultural lists, and upon the basis of those lists, this land is withdrawn or taken out of the reserve and submitted to entry for agricultural purposes.

Now, in the preliminary work of ascertaining what shall be considered for the purpose of being listed, they make preliminary surveys. But those preliminary surveys do not answer the purpose subsequently of the settler who wants to make a filing on some land, and

he is put to the additional expense of having a survey made as a basis for his entry. They can not file on them as they do ordinarily on land surveyed in the congressional townships and that sort of thing, because they are irregular; they run up the draws and little valleys. Senator WARREN. May I interrupt you there?

Senator CRAWFORD. Certainly.

Senator WARREN. As to these forest reserves- a good many of them the regular section lines have not been extended through? Senator CRAWFORD. I think not. They survey them by metes and bounds.

Senator WARREN. In that case your proposition would be to make a reservation within the reservation; that is, make an agricultural reservation according to contour?

Senator CRAWFORD. Contour, and they list them after making a preliminary survey.

Senator WARREN. What then would be your plan when the settler went on the land? How would he settle? How would he describe it? For instance, in the earlier times sometimes we would have a surveyor run a line up 50 or 100 miles, and he would file on land that would be, practically, such and such section and township, or is it your idea to have this run from stone and stump mark, and then when the regular surveys come in have then do as they do in military reservations? What is your idea about that?

Senator CRAWFORD. I do not know that I am competent to answer the Senator's question, but I think perhaps he is more familiar with that than I. I am going to try to get before the committee simply the particular proposition that the department has sent to me, and I think I would be in deep water if I undertook to go outside of it.

Senator WARREN. I was merely bringing the practical side of it up. Senator CRAWFORD. They seem to have outlined all that. I simply want to impress on the subcommittee the situation with regard to that. It seems that after this survey for listing purposes is made and this land is in a way put in a position where settlers may file upon it, then the settler who desires to make a filing on one of those irregular tracts must bear the expense of a survey of the particular parcel of land upon which he wishes to make a filing or place a filing; that is, he is not permitted to employ any competent eligible surveyor to do that work for him. They deprive him of any such privilege as that and they claim in the Black Hills district-particularly in that Custer County region, where this Mr. Wright resides-that they have been subject in a small way to very great provocation by the foresters, who seem to have particular surveyors whom they insist that the settler shall employ, and if he is not willing to take the particular surveyor who accompanies them they will not recognize the survey that he has made, and in some cases the fees imposed on these people and as a rule they are very poor people-have been heavy and burdensome. He states, and does it with such particularity and intelligence, that I am very much impressed by it, how one man who had only two horses, a poor homesteader, wanting to get a little piece of this ground, was compelled to sell one of those two horses to get the money to pay for making a survey to this particular individual that the forester insisted he must employ, and they consider it worthy of some investigation and are making an investigation of it now.

Now, this proposition-and I will read some of the letters here-is to have the survey made by the Government for the purpose of listing this land available as a survey which can be utilized by the surveyor general's office and by this settler without an additional survey.

The CHAIRMAN. Just one survey?

Senator CRAWFORD. Just one survey; and save the settler that expense.

Senator WARREN. That is what I wanted to get at. I appreciate the difficulties. There is this to be said, however, that in order to protect the settler himself, the surveyor has to be a Government. deputy surveyor or some one authorized by the Government.

Senator CRAWFORD. That is provided for here.

Senator WARREN. I say that is one of the things you want to cover. Then if they have any plan whereby it is not too much expense, I wanted to see whether the settler has got to pay the expense of going way back to original surveys or whether it can be done on a reservation within a reservation. If the Senator is satisfied with that, very well. We want to afford them all the help we can.

Senator CRAWFORD. Let me read this statement that is submitted. I think the Senator will grasp it more readily than I can perhaps. This is the proposed amendment:

"To be expended under the direction of the Secretary of Agriculture for survey and listing of lands within forest reserves chiefly valuable for agriculture and describing the same by metes and bounds, or otherwise, as required by the act of June eleventh, nineteen hundred and six, and the act of March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, fifty thousand dollars: Provided, however, That any such survey and the plat and field notes thereof paid for out of this appropriation shall be made by an employee of the Forest Service under the direction of the United States Surveyor General, but no land listed under the act of June eleventh, nineteen hundred and six, shall pass from the forest until patent issues."

The above is the amendment proposed to the agricultural appropriation bill by Mr. Martin of South Dakota, while the bill was under discussion in the House of Representatives.

Before patents can issue to the tract of land entered under the provision of the act of June 11, 1906, it is provided that the entryman shall on or within five years of the date of making settlement file with the required proof of residence and cultivation, a plat and field notes of the land entered, made by and under direction of the United States surveyor general, etc.

It is prescribed that this survey must be made after entry. Under the practice now in vogue there is one survey made by the forest officers as a basis for listing, and when patent is desired, another survey is made by a deputy mineral surveyor under the direction of the surveyor general. The expense of the second survey is borne by the entryman. This first survey made by the forest officer can with very little additional expense be made by a forest officer deputized by the United States surveyor general, and the second survey, now made at the expense of the entryman, obviated. It is for the purpose of relieving the entryman of the burden of paying for the second survey, which now practically amounts to a duplication of the work.

The proviso is inserted so that the right of the Secretary of Agriculture to administer these lands will not be lost if lands listed are subsequently not entered upon by the applicant or patented to him. By the decision of the Solicitor of the Department of Agriculture the Secretary has no jurisdiction over lands after the list letter is filed with the Secretary of the Interior, and no part of the money appropriated for forest service expenses can be used in connection with these listed tracts, such as reexamining the lines of location, etc. If the proviso is adopted it will also enable this department to adopt a more liberal policy in listing tracts which are of doubtful agricultural value. The enactment of this amendment will be a considerable saving to persons who enter tracts surveyed by meets and bounds and also protect the interests of the Government in the manner in which it was believed the original intention of Congress when the act of June 11, 1906, was passed.