REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF THE GENERAL LAND OFFICE. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, September 6, 1919. SIR: I have the honor to submit a report of the transactions of business in the General Land Office for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919, together with my suggestions for new legislation. AREA OF LAND ENTERED AND PATENTED. The total area of public and Indian lands originally entered and allowed during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919, is 11,871,181.50 acres, not including 137,403.27 acres embraced in finals not heretofore counted as original dispositions of land. The latter area is constituted as follows: Public auction, 104,721.15 acres; abandoned military reservations, 7,509.29 acres; cash and private sales, individual claimants and small holding claims, 14,090.26 acres; preemption entries, 86.26 acres; and soldiers' additional homesteads, 10,996.31 acres. The area of 11,871,181.50 acres is an increase of 1,896,849.89 acres, as compared with the area originally entered and allowed during the fiscal year 1918. This increase in allowed entries is due to the stock-raising homestead act of December 29, 1916, 5,559,235.11 acres having been allowed under that act. The area patented during the fiscal year is 10,777,001.349 acres, an increase of 1,224,519.132 acres, as compared with the fiscal year 1918. Of the above area 8,312,318.888 acres were patented under the homestead laws, an increase of 1,819,521.072 acres, not including as homesteads 13,334.12 acres patented as soldiers' additional entries. CASH RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES. The total cash receipts from the sales of public lands, including fees and cominissions ($1,194,472.10), sales of reclamation townsites ($43,863.86), and sales of lands in the Oregon and California railroad grant ($114,008.32), for the fiscal year 1919 were $2,817,063.27. The total receipts from the sales of Indian land were $1,387,781.84. Other receipts aggregated $98,829.19. The total receipts of this bureau during the fiscal year 1919 were $4,303,674.20. |