There was no specification as (to what should constitute reclamation except that "successful cultivation in either grass, the cereals or vegetables for three years" shall be considered as full reclamation. This was no doubt intended to be construed as satisfied through pasturing it or cutting the wild grass on it during the dry season. The land grabbers under it were most likely the authors of the measure.
This law of 1870 was by state administrations viewed as in force for nineteen years. Though in 1878 the terms upon which swamp lands could be bought were radically changed, the claims of those who had taken the first step toward purchase under the law of 1870 were recognized until 1887. A tangled and most disreputable state of things was developed. I will note first the progress of the depredations of the swamp land brigands (though "swamp angel" was the actual appellation) up to 1878. Up to this date some $43,000 had been paid in as the 20 per cent installment by purchasers of swamp lands. A little more than half of this sum had been expended as expenses of selecting swamp lands and in reimbursing purchasers to whom titles could not be given. Five hundred sixty-two thousand acres had been selected by state agents as swamp lands. There were on file in the office of the state board applications for purchase as swamp lands "a large lot of lands" that had not then been selected; there were also on file applications for "about one million acres" that had not even been surveyed. On the other hand, there had actually been approved to the state as swamp lands 2000 acres in all.[1] At the same time the governor was counselling in his message to the legislature that the state stand by its guns, so to speak. He held that there could be no question as to the right of the state to sell these lands (all selected by the state officials) at once and unconditionally. For the state to require reclamation was, from his point of view, imposing "upon the purchaser an entirely useless expense," and the state need not require reclamation unless it
- ↑ Report of School Land Commissioners, 1878, p. 80.
