• After American revolution, all lands not in private use in the former colonies and their "western reserves" were ceded to the federal government, becoming "the public domain."
• Total : 233 million acres in 13 states+Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Alabama, and Mississippi.
• Subsequent acquisitions came from purchases and treaties with other countries: Louisiana purchase, Oregon Compromise, Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, Gadsden and Alaska Purchases.

4. Federal Lands

• Public domain: lands of the original public domain which are still in public ownership and are managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
• Public lands: public domain lands plus lands acquired or reserved for national forests, parks, monuments, game refuges.
• Disposition of public domain: 1775-1891.
• Reservation: withholding of lands, to 1905.
• Management: active systems of handling by federal government, 1905 to present.

• Land Ordinance of 1785; land survey.
• The northwest was surveyed into townships six miles square running east-west and north-south.
• One section in each township was reserved for schools.

• 1 township = 6 sq. mi.
• 36 sections/township
• 1 section = 640 acres; 1 square mile.
• 1/2 section = 320 acres
• 1/4 section = 160 acres; the homestead.
• 1/8 section = 80 acres.
• Section 16 = school lands.

• After survey, lands could be sold at $1/per acre in 640 acre units. Credit system used, but most immigrants did not have $640.
• Squatting: people settled on land without obtaining title; eviction was impractical; survey process lagged; lands not put up for sale; settlers (hardy yeomen) were wanted.
• Cash sales, 1820: Lands sold to highest bidder in 80 (later 40) acre parcels.
• Land claim associations aided squatters in bidding for lands when offered for sale.

• Legalized squatting. Anyone who could prove that they had settled on and improved the land and erected a dwelling on it could purchase up to 160 acres at $1.25 per acre.
• Privileged settlement over cash revenue for government.
• Privileged settler over speculator.
• But was used to file fraudulent land claims.

• Homestead Act, 1862: Any person who was single, or head of household (including single, divorced, widowed women) could claim title to 160 acres if they lived on it for five years and improved it.
• May enter up to 160 acres for cultivation after paying a $10 fee and make final proof after cultivating the land for 5 years.
• Commutation: May purchase title after 6 months for $1.25 per acre.

• Most fertile land had already been occupied.
• Speculation: Cowhands, sailors, immigrants etc. could file a claim, enter the land, and after 6 months buy the 160 acres for $1.25 per acre ($200) provided by a speculator.
• A required "twelve by fourteen" house could be measured in inches, not feet. A shingle roof could be 2 shingles. A house could have a wooden chimney and no floor.
• Land offices were poorly staffed and often with agents who accepted bribes.

• Timber Culture Act, 1873: 160 acres given to any settler who would plant trees on 40 acres (1/4 of the land); later 10 acres.
• Desert Lands Act, 1877: 640 acres of desert land could be purchased for $1.25 per acre, if it was irrigated in three years.
• Free Timber Act, 1878: Timber could be cut on public mineral lands for buildings.
• Timber and Stone Act, 1878: 160 acres of land valuable for timber and stone could be purchased from the federal government.

• General Mining Act, 1872: mineral lands became a separate class from other lands.
• Any one finding a mineral on public lands was entitled to it free by staking a claim--driving stakes into the ground.
• Title to land around the claim was $2.50 (placer, gravel) or $5.00 (lode, hard rock) per acre.
• $100 per year must be spent on labor and improvements up to $500 before permit is issued.

• Railroad Grants: 20 square miles on each side of track in alternate 1 sq. mi. sections.
• Checkerboard sections: 1 sq mi to railroads; 1 sq. mi. withheld by government or sold.
• Western states deed railroads 20% or more of state lands.
• Railroads create land bureaus; send agents to Europe and east coast to recruit settlers.
• Offered transportation for crops (e.g. corn, wheat); encouraged crop specialization.

• Checkerboard pattern of land retained for sale by federal government alternating with R.R. grants.

• Morrill Act, 1862: Land grant act for establishing agricultural and mechanic colleges in every state. To increase technologies for developing resources.
• Hatch Act, 1887: Federal appropriations to state experiment stations to develop and disseminate information on agriculture and nutrition to the people of the state; Cooperative extension as liason to farmers.

• Laissez-faire capitalism: "to let it be;" unregulated development.
• Faire-marcher: "to make it work;" to give it direction. (Bernard Fernow, 1902)
• Utilitarian: to be useful (rather than merely beautiful); Jeremy Bentham; J.S. Mill.
• Conservation: to guard, protect, care for.
• Conservation ethic: "the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time." WJ McGee; Gifford Pinchot.

• Man and Nature, 1864.
• Sold 100,000 copies in a few months.
• Republished as, The Earth as Modified by Human Action, 1874.
• Lawyer, congressman, ambassador to Turkey and Italy.
• Observed human destruction of nature in the Mediterranean.

• Born, 1865; Graduated Yale, 1889; studied in Germany and France.
• Managed Biltmore Estate in N. Carolina.
• Division of Forestry, Chief, 1898.
• Forest Service, Head to 1910.
• Breaking New Ground, 1947.

• University of Pittsburgh.
• Author of Conservation and the Gospel of Efficiency, 1959.

• Were the land laws that encouraged settlement of the American West fair?
• How can natural resources, such as soils and forests, be used sustainably?