LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, OFFICE OF THE SOLICITOR, Washington, D. C., November 8, 1912. SIR: I have the honor to transmit herewith, and to recommend for publication, a compilation of laws and parts of laws of a general nature affecting the administration and protection of the National Forests, with citations to acts of special or local application, and references to the more important decisions of the courts, the Interior Department, the Attorney General, the Comptroller of the Treasury, and the Solicitor of the Department of Agriculture. This compilation was requested by the Forester, and under my direction was compiled by Mr. W. W. Dyar, with the aid of other assistants to the Solicitor, all under the supervision of Mr. R. W. Williams, in charge of the Forest Service section of this office. CONTENTS. Page. Establishment of National Forests and general powers of administration (national monuments and game refuges). Legislation affecting particular National Forests Uniform rules and regulations. Operation... Personnel. Buildings and property. 9 13 14 14 16 Decisions affecting the work of "operation 17 Arrests Carrying concealed weapons 18 Lands... 18 Claims procedure.. 18 Instructions of January 19, 1911 (39 L. D., 458), to special agents and Joint circular of November 25, 1910 (39 L. D., 374), relating to pro- Homestead laws.... Basic provisions of the homestead laws most generally affecting Forest United States Revised Statutes. Special provisions in favor of soldiers and sailors.. 24 Three-year homestead law... 24 011-17-30. HARJ Contests and cancellation of claim-Preference right. Limitation to 320 acres under all land laws, excepting mineral laws. Free homesteads on certain Indian lands opened to settlement. Additional homestead entries... Enlarged homesteads in certain States.. Commutation provisions.... Homestead by married women Settlers who become insane.. Leaves of absence... Final proof notices. 26 26 26 27 27 27 27 27 27 27 Distinction between offered and unoffered lands abolished. 27 27 General provisions of the homestead laws extended to certain lands in the Yellowstone (now Shoshone) National Forest, etc.. Homestead laws extended to Alaska, with modifications, etc.. 27 27 27 proved before September 19, 1898, may be entered under the home- Decisions under the homestead laws. 27 27 Agricultural lands in National Forests... Decisions relating to the listing of agricultural lands for entry-Act 30 32 Mining laws. 33 Basic provisions of the mining laws most generally affecting Forest- Surface patents on good-faith entries of coal lands. Agricultural entry for surface of lands classified or withdrawn as coal Lands-Continued. Limitation to 320 acres under all land laws, excepting mineral-land laws. Secretary of Interior authorized to grant further time for making final Miscellaneous trespasses and other offenses against the United States. Page. GENERAL LAWS, PARTS OF LAWS, DECISIONS, AND ESTABLISHMENT OF NATIONAL FORESTS AND GENERAL tional Forests. Act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 1095), to repeal timber-culture laws, and for other purposes. [1103] SEC. 24. That the President of the United States may, from Creation of Na time to time, set apart and reserve, in any State or Territory having public land bearing forests, in any part of the public lands wholly or in part covered with timber or undergrowth, whether of commercial value or not, as public reservations, and the President shall, by public proclamation, declare the establishment of such reservations and the limits thereof.1 Agricultural appropriation act of March 4, 1907 (34 Stat. 1256). * Sundry civil appropriation act of June 4, 1897 (30 Stat., 11). President em re [34] * * To remove any doubt which may exist pertaining to the authority of the President thereunto [in regard to the National powered to voke, modify, or Forests], the President of the United States is hereby authorized and suspend Execuempowered to revoke, modify, or suspend any and all such Executive tive orders or orders and proclamations, or any part thereof, from time to time as he proclamations. shall deem best for the public interests: * * * utive order, etc. modify any Exec [36] The President is hereby authorized at any time to modify any President may Executive order that has been or may hereafter be made establishing any forest reserve, and by any such modification may reduce the area or change the boundary lines of such reserve, or may vacate altogether any order creating such reserve. Agricultural appropriation act of March 4, 1907 (34 Stat., 1256). certain States. [1271] Hereafter no forest reserve shall be created, nor shall any No new forests additions be made to one heretofore created within the limits of the to be created in States of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Colorado, or Wyoming, except by act of Congress. (California added by act of Aug. 24, 1912, p. 9, post.) Act of February 1, 1905 (33 Stat., 628), providing for the transfer of forest reserves from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Agriculture. Transfer of Na care of Secretary The Secretary of the Department of Agriculture shall, from and after the passage of this act, execute or cause to be executed all laws affecting tional Forests to public lands heretofore or hereafter reserved under the provisions of of Agriculture. section twenty-four of the act entitled "An act to repeal the timber 1 The public lands are held in trust for the whole people, not for the people of the States within which they are located. The Government has in its lands all the rights of an individual proprietor to maintain its possession and prosecute trespassers. It may deal with them as an individual may deal with his lands. It may sell or withhold them from sale or settlement. It may absolutely prohibit or fix the terms on which they may be used. The constitutional declaration that "Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or the property belonging to the United States" (Art. IV, sec. 3), places in Congress authority and discretion to exercise the above rights and powers; and Congress may therefore reserve or authorize the President to reserve public lands as National Forests without the consent of the State within whose borders they lie. (Light v. United States, 220 U. S., 523, and cases therein cited.) 5 26 Stat., 1095. 26 Stat., 1095. tional Forests. culture laws, and for other purposes," approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, and acts supplemental to and amendatory thereof, after such lands have been so reserved, excepting such laws as affect the surveying, prospecting, locating, appropriating, entering, relinquishing, reconveying, certifying, or patenting of any of such lands. Sundry civil appropriation act of June 4, 1897 (30 Stat., 11). [34] All public lands heretofore designated and reserved by the President of the United States under the provisions of the act approved March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-one, the orders for which shall be and remain in full force and effect, unsuspended and unrevoked, and all public lands that may hereafter be set aside and reserved as public forest reserves under said act, shall be as far as practicable controlled and administered in accordance with the following provisions: No public forest reservation shall be established, except to improve Purposes of Na- and protect the forest within the reservation, or for the purpose of securing favorable conditions of water flows, and to furnish a continuous supply of timber for the use and necessities of citizens of the United States; but it is not the purpose or intent of these provisions, or of the act providing for such reservations, to authorize the inclusion therein of lands more valuable for the mineral therein, or for agricultural purposes, than for forest purposes.1 Fire protection. make rules and The Secretary of the Interior shall make provisions for the protection against destruction by fire and depredations upon the public forests and forest reservations which may have been set aside or which may be hereafter set aside under the said act of March third, eighteen hundred Secretary (of and ninety-one, and which may be continued; and he may make such Agriculture) may rules and regulations and establish such service as will insure the objects regulations. of such reservations, namely, to 1egulate their occupancy and use and to preserve the forests thereon from destruction; 2 and any violation of the provisions of this act or such rules and regulations shall be punished as is provided for in the act of June fourth, eighteen hundred and eightyR. S., sec. 5388. eight, amending section fifty-three hundred and eighty-eight of the Revised Statutes of the United States.3 Penalty. Timber may be appraisedand sold. Timber For the purpose of preserving the living and growing timber and promoting the younger growth on forest reservations, the Secretary of the Interior, under such rules and regulations as he shall prescribe, may cause to be designated and appraised so much of the dead, matured, or large growth of trees found upon such forest reservations as may be compatible with the utilization of the forests thereon, and may sell the same for not less than the appraised value in such quantities to must each purchaser as he shall prescribe, to be used in the State or Territory in which such timber reservation may be situated, respectively, but not for export therefrom.+ be used in State. 1 Notwithstanding this language, mineral lands (at least if not located as such at the time of withdrawal) become a part of the National Forest; and their subsequent location does not (prior to patent). withdraw or exclude them therefrom. (United States v. Rizzinelli, 182 Fed., 675.) ** SO Under a forestry proclamation declaring "that the withdrawal made by this proclamation shall, as to all lands at this time legally appropriated * * *be subject to and shall not interfere with or defeat legal rights under such appropriation * long as such appropriation is maintained," a mining location existing at the date of the proclamation becomes a part of the National Forest subject only to the rights of the owner thereof under the mineral laws. (2 Sol. Op., 763; id., 865.) Lands covered by railroad and ditch rights-of-way at the time of withdrawal become part of the National Forests subject to such rights-of-way. (2 Sol. Op., 790; id., 728.) If agricultural lands are improvidently included in a forest reservation they can be eliminated only by proclamation of the President or by act of Congress. (E. S. Gosney, 29 L. D., 593, 30 L. D., 44; decided before the passage of act of June 11, 1906.) 2 Authority to regulate occupancy and use includes authority to forbid either or both, and to permit the same upon terms and conditions, including payment of charges, especially where the statutes provide for the disposition of the moneys received. (22 Op. Atty. Gen., 266; 25 id., 470; 26 id., 421; United States v. Grimaud, 220 U. S., 506.) 3 Congress itself having provided criminal penalties for violation of the regulations, the act is not unconstitutional as an attempt to delegate legislative powers. (United States v. Grimaud, 220 U. S., 506; Light v. United States, 220 U. S., 523.) 4 By act of Mar. 4, 1907, p. 60, post, the Secretary of Agriculture is given authority to permit export of timber except from the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. |