14. The fees for all entries under this act ahall be ten dollars, and the ciammisaion of registers and receivers on all entries, irrespective of areas, shall be four dollars (two dollars to each) at the date a entry, and a like sum at the date of final proof.
15. No distinction is made as to area or the amount of fee and commissions between minimum and double minimum lands; a party may enter 16.) acres of either on payment of the preen rued fee and commissions.
16. The fifth section of the act entitled An act in ad dition to an act to punish crimes against the United States, and for other purposes, appioyed March 8, 1857, shall extend to all oaths, affirmations, and affidavits re quired or authorized by this act.
17. Parties who may have already made entries under the timber-culture act of March 3, 1873, of which this is amendatory, shall be permitted to continue and com plete the same in the manner and under the conditions prescribed by this act.
There is something taking and eloquent in the immensity of the area of the newer States and Territories of the United States. These used to be considered as a wild, arid wastb—a desert in fact, not susceptible'of cultivation. The settle ment of Kansas and Nebraska has shown the fallacy of this and the States now being carved out in the Rocky mountains, rich both in vege table and mineral wealth, show. that there is still plenty of room for the energetic settle}. The following table will show the number of acres in farms, the acres not in farms, and the number of acres in the total areas of the regions mentioned; Taking into consideration only the farm-lands, the proportion of wood-lands is smallest in Cali fornia, being 4.1 per cent. In order, respec tively, follow Nevada, 6.4 per cent.; Nebraska 10.2; Kansas 11.2; Iowa, 16.2; Illinois, 19 6. The proportion increases, State by State, from the Pacific coast eastward to Indiana (39.6 per cent.,) and then comes the devastation of the axe, which reduces the percentage of Ohio, a region originally forest, with the exception of small patches of prairie, mainly about the head waters of the Miami, to 31.7 per cent. Pennsyl vania has about the same proportion, or 31.9, and New Jersey 24 per cent. There are only two other Western States that have percentages between 20 and 30, viz., Minnesota, 20.6; Wis consin, 29.3. The Eastern States (besides New Jersey,) which come within the same limits, are Connecticut, 24.4; New York, 25 5; Massachu setts, 25.8; Delaware, 28; New Hampshire, 29: Vermont,30.6. Those having between 30 and 40 per cent. of this farm area in forest are: Penn sylvania, Indiana, named above; Oregon, 31.8; Maryland, 31.8, Rhode Island, 33.7; Maine, 38.1. The States having between four and five tenths of their farm lands in forest are three: Michigan, 40.7; Texas (the eastern portion gene rally wooded,) 41.6; Virginia, 45.7. The south ern belt is the most heavily v,00ded portion of the country, all the States, with the exception of Virginia and Texas, having more than half of their farm areas in woodland, and a larger por tion still if the wooded wild lands should be counted in with the farm-lands. The proportion in the occnpied or farm areas is as follows. West Virginia, 51.1; Arkansas, 51 4; South Carolina, 53.2; Georgia, 54.6; Tennessee, 55; Alabama, 56; Florida. 60; North Carolina and Mississippi, each 60.6 per cent. The Territories have only a very small portion of their respective areas in farms Here and there only a small survey has been made, near some town, along some stream, or in the neighborhood of mining operations. The areas in wood are mainly among the mountains, the most heavily wooded on northern slopes and in the gorges protected from the winds; the proportion given for farm lands is, therefore, in all probability, less than the real portion for the entire area of a Territory, not withstanding the fact that available woodlands in surveyed tracts are rapidly taken up by farm ers. Utah, one-tenth of one per cent.; Montana
and Wyoming, eight-tenths of one per cent.; Colorado, 3.5; Dakota, 7.4; Idaho, 9 6; New Mexico, 12.7; Washington, 44.8. Most of the States, in their several counties, exhibit great diversity in the abundance of their wood and timber supplies. In the new States it is due to the existence of prairies, or treeless plains, traversed by streams shaded by a line of forest, which characterize the surface of all or a portion of a State; in the older States it is simply the result of settlement and cultivation, in the destruction of forests, by clearing lands for farms, for supplies of wood for fuel, in obtaining timber for building, and for the various uses of mechanism. East of the Alleghenies almost the entire surface of the land was originally in forest. On the very summit of the Alleghenies are com paratively large tracts of level meadows, or mountain prairies, known as glades which are found in undrained soils not suited to the growth of trees, though this mountain-chain is generally wooded, on slope and summit, with as fine and various an aborescent growth as can be seen in any part of the North American tinent. West of the mountains, through West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky, there was little less than forest in the times of the aborigines; and in northeastern, southern, and southwestern Indiana, a wooded surface was the prevailing characteristic, and even now it is a favorite resort for obtaining black walnuts and poplars of enormous size,- and great trunks of oaks, fit for use in many a man-of-war. The South was, and is, a wooded region, with very few and small prairies in the valley of the Mississippi, and none really worth mentioning until central Texas is reached. In northern Missouri are extensive prairies, but almost half the area of the State is now covered with forest, notwithstanding the extensive clearing of 'farm-lands during more than fifty years since its settlement; and more than half the surface of Arkansas and Louisiana, both west of the Mississippi; is now covered with wood. Meteorological records show that the lines of equal moisture, in this section, run northeast and southwest, through -western Kan sas, eastern Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin; • the records of the rain-fall of any given period cor respond on that line, rather than with a line through Kansas and Missouri; so the rains of central Nebraska and Minnesota, in point of time and quantity, correspond more nearly than those of Nebraska and Iowa. As might natur ally be expected, we find the forest boundary, from Texas to Illinois,beyond which the prairies stretch westward, running in a general direction corresponding with the lines of equal rain-fall. As a result, (though the lack of trees further west can not be attributed to insufficient rain-fall alone,) we find plains predominating in western Texas, in nearly all of the Indian Territory, in a strip of western and nearly all of northern Missouri, in a large portion of Illinois, and in western and northern Indiana, nearly to Lake Erie. Southern Illinois has an average propor tion of forest. The belt south of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad has a percentage of 43 5, which is greater than that of Missouri, and almost equal to that of Virginia.