cial use, of the agricultural, grazing, and forest resources of the Indians is a matter of the utmost importance to both the Indians and their neighbors.

At the first session of the Seventy-first Congress the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs reported favorably on bills for the creation of the Colville Indian Forest and the Klamath Indian Forest. The Klamath bill passed the Senate, but the Colville bill was returned to the committee. Neither bill was acted upon in the House of Representatives. At the second session of the Seventy-second Congress slightly modified bills as to the Colville and Klamath and similar bills for the creation of the Warm Spring and Yakima Indian forests were suggested by the Interior Department. All four bills were introduced in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Yakima bill was favorably reported by the House Indian Committee and was passed on June 23, 1930. The Yakima Indians have indorsed the proposed legislation. The Colville Indians have also expressed their approval of the creation of the Colville Indian Forest, but the approval of the Klamath and Warm Spring Indians has not been obtained. It is believed that their approval will be expressed when the members of these tribes come to understand the purpose of the bills. Legislation of this character is directed to the conservation of resources that may be made to yield a continuous income to the Indians and at the same time contribute to the welfare of the Nation as a whole. It is hoped that before the end of the Seventy-second Congress these four bills and similar ones regarding other Indian reservations, that will be suggested by the department, will be enacted into law. The definite establishment of a fixed forest land status for approximately 6,000,000 acres of Indian lands would contribute materially to the successful management of these forests and would mark a distinctive step forward in the conservation of national resources.

In April, 1930, changes in the allocation of a number of the more responsible positions in the forestry branch made it possible to pay salaries somewhat comparable to those paid for similar work in other branches of the Federal service and avoided the loss of several experienced employees who had seriously contemplated transfer to other departments or the accepting of employment with private corporations engaged in the lumber industry. With these increases it has also been possible to secure men with training in special lines of forestry work whom the service had been unable to obtain under the allocation formerly existing.

The act making appropriations for the Department of the Interior for the fiscal year 1931 contains the first specific authority for the payment of rewards for information leading to the arrest and conviction of persons setting forest fires in contravention of law. A substantial increase was also made in the appropriation for forestry work on Indian lands and this appropriation was separated from a general appropriation for several distinct lines of work. Twenty thousand dollars was appropriated for the continuation of forest insect control within the Klamath Reservation, for which two annual appropriations of $25,000 each had previously been made. It is hoped that hereafter this infestation may be controlled by the expenditure of much smaller amounts taken from the general appropriation for forestry work at Klamath.

efficiency secured by means of more adequate appropriations. Several additional steel stairway lookouts were erected, this system of detection having demonstrated its effectiveness.

The policy of restricting sales of stumpage on Indian lands to cases in which funds were urgently needed, or certain conditions indicating a loss of capital values through delay, has been continued through the year for economic reasons as well as silvicultural ones. However, three sales have been made, one on the Bois Fort, or Nett Lake Reservation in Minnesota, comprising approximately 12,000 acres of allotted lands. The timber on these allotments consists principally of inferior species, being largely pulpwood, which should be removed now while a purchaser of adjoining timber has a logging railroad in that locality. A number of the allottees were also in need of the funds to be derived from the sale of the timber. In view of the market, the prices received were adequate. The second and third sales were within the Klamath Reservation in Oregon; one, the Calimus Butte unit, comprising only 3,500,000 board feet, could be most advantageously logged in connection with the Calimus-Marsh unit, now being operated; the other, the Sprague Canyon unit, comprising about 17,000,000 feet, had been greatly injured by pine bark beetles and immediate sale seemed desirable because of the logging of adjacent timber. Satisfactory prices were obtained for both of the Klamath units.

Early in the fiscal year it appears that the lumber market was recovering from the depression that had existed for some time, but in November, 1929, conditions became exceptionally unfavorable and throughout the remainder of the year there was a marked curtailment of production by companies cutting timber from Indian lands. The total amount cut during the fiscal year was only 561,415,352 board feet, for which the Indians received an income of $2,313,644. This income was $504,671 below the amount received for the fiscal year 1929.

During the fiscal year the logging railroad on the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin was extended approximately 13 miles across the Wolf and Oconto Rivers into the northeastern township of the reservation. By means of this railroad a rather narrow strip of timber, consisting principally of hemlock and hardwoods, will be logged selectively and the timber brought to the Neopit sawmill for manufacture. This timber, which was left when the more valuable and floatable pine was taken out through the Wolf and Oconto Rivers over 30 years ago, is inferior in quality and its logging will necessarily be expensive. It is unfortunate that it should be logged when the market is so weak. However, plans directed to the concentration of logging operations in the future seem to demand the entering of this unfavorable territory at this time. Notwithstanding very ad

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verse conditions during the fiscal year 1930, a profit has been realized by the Menominee mills.

In furtherance of the general plan of forest administration_within the Menominee Reservation, outlined in 1927, a fairly comprehensive study of forest growth on cut-over lands of the reservation was made during the past year. The results of this study were summarized in a report designated as A Preliminary Forest Management Plan for the Menominee Indian Reservation. This report presents in written form the guiding principles upon which logging operations at Neopit have been conducted in recent years and demonstrates clearly the possibilities of forest production which have heretofore been predicted by foresters from a general familiarity with tree growth in the Lake States.

An experimental forest area, consisting of 1,780 acres of logged and burned-over tribal lands, has been established as the Quinaielt Reservation in western Washington. Early in 1929 forestry employees of the Taholah jurisdiction planted 3,500 3-year-old spruce seedlings on a part of this area. Although these trees were of natural growth, pulled within the reservation, a survival of 90 per cent was secured. On Lincoln's Birthday, 1930, members of the Elks lodge of Hoquiam, Wash., assisted the Indian Service rangers and scalers in planting about 20 acres additional. It is hoped that this first demonstration in the Grays Harbor region of the practicability of forest planting for commercial purposes may be of assistance in arousing and maintaining public interest in this subject.

On the Red Lake Reservation, Minn., where forest planting on a small scale was first tried in 1919 with only fair success, about 25,000 Norway and white pine transplants were placed in the field in May, 1930. This planting stock was purchased and donated to the Indian Service by a prominent lumberman, resident in Minneapolis, who had expressed a desire to have a part in an experiment of this character. As members of his family about 30 years ago had manufactured millions of feet of virgin pine taken from the Red Lake Reservation, his interest in the rehabilitation of the pine forests on the Red Lake Reservation affords a striking illustration of the broad view that progressive lumbermen have with regard to reforestation. This gentleman has indicated a desire for further cooperation concerning this worthy project.

The forest planting of 1930 on the Menominee Reservation was made along State Highway No. 47, where the results attained will afford a constant object lesson, not only to the Menominee Indians but also to the hundreds of thousands of tourists passing along the road each season. The site is not a particularly favorable one, being very sandy, but was selected because of its proximity to a main thoroughfare and the probability of protection of the plantation from forest fire.

Mention should be made of a unique forest fire lookout erected within the Quinaielt Indian Reservation, Wash., through the cooperation of the forestry branch and the Hobi Timber Co. who were logging Indian timber. This lookout was constructed by topping a Douglas fir at a height of 174 feet from the ground and then building an observer's house approximately 8 feet square with its floor 170 feet from the ground. From this lookout approximately twothirds of the entire area of the Quinaielt Reservation, an extensive

REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS

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area within the Olympic National Forest, and many square miles of private forest land, are visible.

For 1929 the total annual appropriations for ordinary care and preservation of timber on Indian reservations, including expenses incidental to the sale of timber, but exclusive of fire suppression charges, was $335,000. This sum was increased for the 1930 fiscal year by $25,000 and for 1931 a further increase of $130,000 has been secured. Deficiency appropriations have been necessary to meet obligations incurred in the suppression of many fires occurring on timbered areas, and a total of $70,000 spread over a 3-year period has been made available from tribal moneys for insect-control work on the Klamath Reservation, Oreg.

IRRIGATION ACTIVITIES

The lands of the several Indian reservations in the western part of the United States are for the most part desert like in character, and their utilization can come about only through irrigation or the artificial application of water to the soil. In a wider sense irrigation is taken to include the whole question of conservation and utilization of water in the development of the arid regions and to embrace a discussion of features of social and political importance arising from the reclamation of the arid lands of these reservations. In the early days the Indians in most instances where cultivation of the soil was carried on for the production of crops would divert in a crude way, by the placing of brush and rock in the stream, small quantities of water into a crudely constructed ditch for such purpose. These methods were uneconomical and resulted only in very limited irrigation. To obviate this condition and provide adequate irrigation facilities an engineering force was first employed in the Indian Service about 1913. The work has been the planning and construction of irrigation works to divert and carry water from rivers and streams for application to the lands. This involves construction of diversion dams, headgates, canals, flumes and pipes, tunnels, and lining of canals in order to facilitate economically the transference of the water from the streams to the land. Many of the streams are seasonal, and after the melting of the snows in the spring the run-off diminishes until the natural flow of the streams is inadequate to take care of the lands of the particular project. This condition has necessitated the construction of various types of dams, such as masonry, concrete, rock-filled, and earthen dams to create reservoirs in which to impound the flood waters of the streams that prior to construction of the reservoirs are to a large extent wasted. This method results in providing an adequate water supply, enables regulation of its distribution, and assures water for crop production throughout the irrigation season.

There are also constructed ordinary and artesian wells for the tapping of underground waters to provide irrigation where the surface flow is inadequate or entirely absent. Underground wells are also provided for drainage purposes, the water being used to supplement the surface supply. Such operations result in preventing alkali and seeped conditions which are bound to follow after lands have been irrigated for a period of years unless drainage facilities are provided.

The irrigation branch of this service has also carried on the water development by drilling of wells, cleaning of springs, and construction of small reservoirs or charcos to catch the surface runoffs in sections where stock and sheep-raising conditions are successfully practiced, particularly within the Navajo and Hopi Reservations and the pueblos in New Mexico and Arizona.

As a by-product, power plants are installed and operated during the irrigation season of the impounding dams, power being generated from the water passed through the dam for irrigation purposes. In the carrying on of this activity there have been developed, both large and small, 205 irrigation projects at the approximate cost to June 30, 1930, as revised, of $36,964,013 for construction work, and for operation and maintenance, $10,994,576. The construction reimbursements have been approximately $1,418,330 and the reimbursements for operation and maintenance have been $3,776,482. The total area of lands under constructed works in the Indian irrigation service is approximately 775,000 acres, being an increase of about 25,000 acres during the current year; the total area irrigated during 1929 was approximately 361,708 acres. Within the boundaries of the various irrigation projects there is an estimated total of 1,358,761 acres of land susceptible of irrigation, and the estimated cost to complete the projects so as to supply water to this full acreage of irrigable land is $30,000,000.

It is realized that readjustment of the reimbursable indebtedness must be made because instances exist where per acre charges against the land on behalf of irrigation works exceed the present value of the land. The policy is to place these irrigation projects on a sound economic foundation, so that the individual Indians will feel that their land is not encumbered with onerous obligations. At the present time some of the Indians refuse to utilize the irrigation activities afforded them, because they feel that they would be involved in the reimbursable obligation, where, as a matter of fact, under the law their lands are subject to a lien created against the lands to assure repayment of the obligation. Studies will be made for the purpose of thoroughly analyzing the whole situation with a view to securing proper legislation to remedy the conditions. It is believed this will effect greater interest by the Indians in the cultivation of their lands, and that they will be induced to remain thereon. During the current year construction work has been performed at a cost of approximately $1,514,241 and the cost for operation and maintenance during this year has been approximately $740,064. In reimbursement of these expenditures, collections have been made for construction costs amounting to $150,000, and for operation and maintenance expenses, $389,877.

Much interest has centered around the Coolidge Dam and the San Carlos irrigation project in Arizona, the Coolidge Dam having been completed and the impounding of water commenced on November 15, 1928. To the present time only a small portion of the total capacity of the San Carlos Reservoir has been utilized owing to the comparatively light run-off during the time the storage of water has been in progress. The highest stage reached up to the present is approximately 163,300 acre-feet of available water. The total capacity of the reservoir is 1,200,000 acre-feet. Activities have been