Slike strani
PDF
ePub

Illegal occupancy of ranger station sites.

The United States may maintain a suit in equity for an interlocutory mandatory injunction and a final decree of abatement to restrain continuous trespass and waste upon public land which has been withdrawn from sale and devoted to governmental use for a ranger station in connection with a forest reservation. (United States v. Hodges et ux., 218 Feḍ., 87.)

Payment of State fees on shipment of horses.

Payment of cost of mallein test for glanders required on interstate shipment of ranger's horses not authorized by General Order No. 145. (2 Sol. Op., 1025.)

LANDS.

CLAIMS WITHIN NATIONAL FORESTS.

To the Commissioner, chief of field service, chiefs of field divisions, registers and receivers, General Land Office, Department of the Interior; the Forester, district foresters, Forest Service, the Solicitor, and district assistants to the Solicitor, Department of Agriculture.

GENTLEMEN: Better to effectuate cooperation in protecting the interests of the Government and settlers and other claimants to lands within National Forests, the following order is made, effective on and after October 1, 1915, superseding order of November 25, 1910 (39 L. D., 374):

1. Hereafter, when a person files application to make entry, or to amend an existing entry, embracing lands within a National Forest, basing the right of entry, or amendment, on settlement prior to the establishment of the forest, the register and receiver will require such person to file with his application a statement under oath, in duplicate, containing his name and address, description and character of the land involved, the date he established residence on the land, his absence from the land, kind and character of improvements placed thereon, and the amount of land cleared and cultivated, accompanied by the affidavit, in duplicate, of at least one disinterested person, corroborating the statement. The register and receiver will immediately forward the duplicate of such statement and affidavit to the supervisor of the National Forest in which the lands are embraced, with information as to the date of filing the application, the date of filing the township plat of survey covering the land, and any other facts of record affecting the application, and will suspend action on the application for 60 days, or upon the request of the forest supervisor, where climatic or other conditions require, for such time, not to exceed 6 months, as will enable him to make an examination of the claim, unless in the meantime they shall receive notice of no protest, as hereinafter provided.

2. The register and receiver, in issuing notice of intention to make final proof upon claims, either mineral or nonmineral, within a National Forest, shall immediately furnish a copy thereof to the supervisor in charge of such forest, and, other than to publish such notice and receive final proof, will, except in mineral cases as herein

after prescribed, suspend action on the final proof for 60 days from date thereof, or, upon the request of the forest supervisor, where climatic or other conditions require, for such time, not to exceed 6 months, as will enable him to make an examination of the claim, unless in the meantime they shall receive notice of no protest as hereinafter provided. In each case, however, where the register and receiver, upon examination of the final proof at any time after its submission, find it to be incurably defective, the same will be rejected and the Forest Service so advised, notwithstanding the time within which a protest may be filed hereunder has not expired.

3. The forest supervisor, upon receipt of the statement mentioned in paragraph 1, or the notice mentioned in paragraph 2, will at once make investigation of the claim and will submit to the district forester a report thereon, unless immediate investigation is impossible because of climatic or other conditions, when an extension of time will be requested as provided in paragraphs 1 and 2 hereof, and the investigation will be made and the report submitted as soon as possible within the period of extension. The district forester will promptly consider the report and if of opinion that no protest should be filed, will so advise the register and receiver. If the district forester is of opinion that a protest should be made, he will transmit the papers to the district assistant to the Solicitor, who will prepare for his signature a protest, not under oath or corroborated, in which shall be plainly and briefly stated the grounds upon which the protest is based. The protest shall be filed in triplicate with the register and receiver of the proper local land office.

4. Upon receipt of the protest, the register and receiver shall immediately forward a copy thereof to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, in accordance with rule 4 of the Rules of Practice, and in every case immediately issue the notice required by rule 5 thereof, accompanied by a copy of the protest, stating that unless the adverse party appears and answers the allegations of said notice within 30 days after service thereof, the allegations of the protest shall be taken as confessed. Upon the filing of the answer, the register and receiver shall set a date for a hearing, after consultation with the district assistant to the Solicitor, and notify parties as provided in the Rules of Practice. Upon failure of the claimant to appear at the hearing the allegations of the protest will be taken as confessed. Hearings shall be conducted in accordance with the Rules of Practice. In other than mineral cases action upon the application and upon the final proof, which may be offered in the usual manner, shall be suspended pending the final determination of the protest, except as provided in paragraph 2 hereof for the disposition of incurably defective proof. In mineral applications for patent the proof should be considered on its merits, and if found regular, certificate issued, but the claimant should be advised in such case that patent will be witheld by the General Land Office pending determination of the protest.

5. If no protest be filed within the time limit as provided in paragraphs 1 and 2 hereof, the register and receiver shall take appropriate action upon the application or the final proof. But in no case, in the absence of the filing of a protest or a no-protest notice as hereinabove provided, shall patent issue until the Commissioner of the General Land Office is notified by, or ascertain from, the Forester that the claim will not be protested as provided in paragraph 6 hereof.

6. A protest may be initiated against any claim, mineral or nonmineral, embracing lands within National Forests at any time prior to patent, by the Solicitor, or the district assistant to the Solicitor, of the Department of Agriculture, filing in the local land office, in triplicate, a complaint signed by the Forester or the district forester, not under oath or corroborated, setting forth clearly and briefly the grounds of the protest. Upon receipt of such complaint, the register and receiver shall forward a copy thereof to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, issue the notice required by rule 5 of the Rules of Practice, accompanied by a copy of the complaint, and arrange for a hearing, if applied for, as provided in paragraph 4 hereof. 7. In all hearings affecting lands or claims within a National Forest the district assistant to the Solicitor will be entered of record as appearing on behalf of the Government, and will conduct the Government's side of the case.

8. Forest lieu and school selection cases will be handled by the chiefs of field division of the General Land Office in like manner as heretofore. The forest officers will, upon request of the chiefs of field division, render any assistance possible in the making of investigations, and the district assistants to the Solicitor of the Department of Agriculture will cooperate with the chiefs of field division in the conduct of hearings in such cases, and thereafter will take action in like manner as heretofore, including the taking of appeals to the Secretary of the Interior.

9. In all Government cases before registers and receivers involving lands or claims within a National Forest, the district assistant to the Solicitor shall be served with copies of all answers, appeals, motions, orders, and decisions required to be noted under the rules in cases of private contests. The proper law officers of the Department of Agriculture shall also have a right of appeal from any decision by the Commissioner of the General Land Office, and to file motion for rehearing in the Department of the Interior, or take other like action in the same manner as a private contestant and shall receive like notices of proceedings and decisions: Provided, however, That the Department of Agriculture shall not be required to take formal appeals from decisions of registers and receivers.

10. Chiefs of field division and special agents will not hereafter take action in regard to any claims within a National Forest, except as provided in paragraph 8 hereof, unless specifically directed by the Commissioner of the General Land Office or the Secretary of the Interior: Provided, That chiefs of field division may, on request of a district forester, assign mineral examiners to assist in the investigation of cases involving mining claims.

11. Costs of hearings will be paid from the appropriation for expenses of hearings in land entries as now provided for other Government contests. Prior to June 1 of each year the district assistant to the Solicitor will mail to the chief of field division in whose division the lands involved lie, an estimate of the funds necessary to cover the hearings during the first quarter of the ensuing fiscal year. Like action will be taken on the first day of each month which immediately precedes the other quarters of the fiscal year. Such estimates should be accompanied by a list of the cases to be heard, which should in

10283°-16- -3

clude the names of claimants, local land office, and serial number of entry or application, and character of entries or filings. The chief of field division will transmit the lists and estimates received from the district assistant to the Solicitor to the Commissioner of the General Land Office at the same time he submits his estimates for hearings involving lands in his district outside of National Forests. When these lists and estimates are received in the General Land Office the appropriation will be allotted for the quarter and each chief of field division will be advised of the amount which will be allowed for forest cases and he will advise the district assistant to the Solicitor thereof. Payment for the expenses of hearings from the appropriation so allotted will be made by special disbursing agents upon proper vouchers, as is now provided for Government contests in cases outside of National Forests, but such vouchers must be approved by the district assistant to the Solicitor and by the chief of field division before payment is made.

Respectfully,

WASHINGTON, D. C., August 5, 1915.

FRANKLIN K. LANE,

Secretary of the Interior. DAVID F. HOUSTON,

Secretary of Agriculture.

AGRICULTURAL LANDS IN NATIONAL FORESTS.

Forest homestead act of June 11, 1906 (34 Stat., 233).

The Secretary of Agriculture may, in his discretion, and he is hereby authorized, upon application or otherwise, to examine and ascertain as to the location and extent of lands within permanent or temporary forest reserves, except the following counties in the State of California, Inyo, Tulare, Kern, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego; which are chiefly valuable for agriculture, and which, in his opinion, may be occupied for agricultural purposes without injury to the forest reserves, and which are not needed for public purposes, and may list and describe the same by metes and bounds, or otherwise, and file the lists and descriptions with the Secretary of the Interior, with the request that the said lands be opened to entry in accordance with the provisions of the homestead laws and this act.

Upon the filing of any such list or description the Secretary of the Interior shall declare the said lands open to homestead settlement and entry in tracts not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres in area and not exceeding one mile in length, at the expiration of sixty days from the filing of the list in the land office of the district within which the lands are located, during which period the said list or description shall be prominently posted in the land office and advertised for a period of not less than four weeks in one newspaper of general circulation published in the county in which the lands are situated: Provided, That any settler actually occupying and in good faith claiming such lands for agricultural purposes prior to January first, nineteen hundred and six, and who shall not have abandoned the same, and the person, if qualified to make a homestead entry, upon whose application the land proposed to be entered was examined and

listed, shall each in the order named, have a preference right of settlement and entry: Provided further, That any entryman desiring to obtain patent to any lands described by metes and bounds entered by him under the provisions of this act shall, 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 lands entered, made by or under the direction of the United States surveyor general, showing accurately the boundaries of such lands, which shall be distinctly marked by monuments on the ground, and by posting a copy of such plat, together with a notice of the time and place of offering proof, in a conspicuous place on the land embraced in such plat during the period prescribed by law for the publication of his notice of intention to offer proof, and that a copy of such plat and field notes shall also be kept posted in the office of the register of the land office for the land. district in which such lands are situated for a like period; and further, that any agricultural lands within forest reserves may, at the discretion of the Secretary, be surveyed by metes and bounds, and that no lands entered under the provisions of this act shall be patented under the commutation provisions of the homestead laws, but settlers, upon final proof, shall have credit for the period of their actual residence upon the lands covered by their entries.

Additional homestead rights.

SEC. 2. That settlers upon lands chiefly valuable for agriculture within forest reserves on January first, nineteen hundred and six, who have already exercised or lost their homestead privilege, but are otherwise competent to enter lands under the homestead laws, are hereby granted an additional homestead right of entry for the purposes of this act only, and such settlers must otherwise comply with the provisions of the homestead law, and in addition thereto must pay two dollars and fifty cents per acre for lands entered under the provisions of this section, such payment to be made at the time of making final proof on such lands.

Black Hills Forest Reserve.

SEC. 3. That all entries under this act in the Black Hills Forest Reserve shall be subject to the quartz or lode mining laws of the United States, and the laws and regulations permitting the location, appropriation, and use of the waters within the said forest reserves for mining, irrigation, and other purposes; and no titles acquired to agricultural lands in said Black Hill Forest Reserve under this act shall vest in the patentee any riparian rights to any stream or streams of flowing water within said reserve; and that such limitation of title shall be expressed in the patents for the lands covered by such entries.

SEC. 4. That no homestead settlements or entries shall be allowed in that portion of the Black Hills Forest Reserve in Lawrence and Pennington Counties in South Dakota [except the following described townships in the Black Hills Forest Reserve, in Pennington County, South Dakota, to wit: Townships one north, one east; two north, one east; one north, two east; two north, two east; one south, one east; two south, one east; one south, two east; and two south, two east, Black Hills meridian], except to persons occupying lands therein prior to January first, nineteen hundred and six, and the provisions

« PrejšnjaNaprej »