18. Matias Dominguez Pacheco Dominguez grant, 500 acres. 19. Villa de Santa Fe grant, Santa Fe County, 4 square leagues. 20. Nerio Antonio Montoya graut, Valencia County, 3,546.06 acres. 21. Cristobal de la Serna grant, Taos County, 30,000 acres. 22. The San Marcos Pueblo, Santa Fe County, 1,890.62 acres. 23. The Santa Teresa de Jesus and the Bosque Grande grant; area of latter 3,253.09 acres; of former unsurveyed. 24. Donna Ana Bend Colony grant, Donna Ana County, 16,640 acres. 25. San Miguel del Bado grant, San Miguel County, 315,300.80 acres. 26. Santisima Trinidad or Rancho de Galvan, Bernalillo County, 30,000 acres. 27. San Antonito grant, Bernalillo County, 32,000 acres. 28. Nuestra Señora del Rosario, San Fernando y Santiago grant, Rio Arriba County, area undetermined. 29. Santiago Anisa grant, Arizona. 30. Piedra Lumbre grant, Rio Arriba County, 48,336.12 acres. 31. Agua Salada grant, 18,046.50 acres. 32. Plaza Blanca grant. 33. City of Isleta, Texas and New Mexico. 34. Ignacio Chavez grant, 243,036.43 acres. The following have been confirmed by decrees of the court: 1. Cubero grant, Valencia County, 16,000 acres. 2. Bernabé Montaño grant, Bernalillo County, 34,000 acres. 3. City of Albuquerque grant, Bernalillo County, 12,000 acres. 4. Rancho del Rio Grande grant, Taos County, 109,000 acres. THE LAND-COURT ACT. This law, which is such a boon to our people, requires some amendments, which should be made very promptly at the opening of the next session of Congress in December. Those which affect the most individuals are relative to the "small holdings," or little farms of the husbandman and peasantry of the Territory. In both my reports for 1890 and 1891, I endeavored to explain the peculiar shape of these small tracts, which makes it impossible to apply to them the ordinary United States laws as to square "legal subdivisions." As a foundation for what I wish to say now, it will perhaps be well to quote the following from last year's report: In an irrigated country the cultivated land lies between the acequia or irrigating ditch and the river. Our valleys are usually narrow, giving ordinarily a width of 1,000 to 3,000 feet to this cultivated land. This is cut up into small farms. When first settled the original occupants usually had a plot from 50 to 300 varas wide (a vara is a short yard, 33 inches), running from the river to the foothills back of the acequia. As generations succeeded each other these tracts were divided among heirs until the strips became very narrow. The land is of great fertility, and hence a small farm will support a family. To illustrate by a part of the Rio Grande Valley, with which I am familiar, the series of "small holdings" runs as follows as to width in varas: 20, 40, 18, 22, 51, 13, 5, 40. 10, 10, 30, 40, 35, 26. Here are fourteen small farms, each about 1,500 feet long from the hills to the river, and having an aggregate width of 360 varas, or about 1,000 feet. Altogether they contain about 35 acres, or an average of 2 acres each. They have been owned and occupied and worked through many generations, and the title to them is as perfect as any that can be conceived, except that they are menaced by the power of the United States, in direct violation of the treaty. Now, the "land-court bill" provides, in section 17, that any one of the owners of the above fourteen tracts, upon making proof of the fact of his residence, etc., may "enter such legal subdivision, not exceeding 160 acres, as shall include his said possession." The smallest "legal subdivision" known to Land Office law is 40 acres, and yet within a less area than that we have fourteen owners in this case. From this it will be seen how utterly inapplicable this provision is to a country which was settled before either Jamestown or Plymouth was thought of, and where land is held in an entirely different manner from that which was suitable to our public domain on the prairies of the Northwest. These facts were laid before the Committee on Private Land Claims of the Senate, together with others, showing that the requirement of residence on each strip of land was wrong, because by descent or by purchase one person might own several of these strips and yet his whole property not exceed 10 or 15 acres, and especially because the system of colonization of the Spaniards looked to the establishmeut of a central plaza or town, where all should live together for purposes of mutual protection, while their lands were situated up and down the river and were not resided upon at all. These two points were urged on the committee by the commission which visited Washington in May, 1890, and they immediately agreed that the bill should be amended so as to make it just and applicable to the circumstances of the land and the people. In the pressure of Congressional business, while the necessary alterations as to the shape of the tracts was made in section 16, it was overlooked in section 17; and in neither section was the provision as to residence corrected; and the bill finally passed in that form. In the present Congress a bill was introduced in the House amendatory of the act, and correcting these errors, and this was reported favorably by the Committee on the Judiciary, accompanied by an explanatory report embodying a letter from Commissioner Carter. This amendatory act contains the most necessary corrections, although in rather an awkward form, and it is to be hoped that it may speedily become a law. There are thousands of these small holdings in the Territory, and under the law as at present worded, not one in a hundred can be confirmed. As long as the United States insists on interfering with these titles, it ought to provide a simple, expeditious, and equitable method of making them secure. I am still of the opinion, however, that the whole course of our legislation on these subjects is wrong; that the United States never owned an acre of these lands which were in the legal possession of individuals under the Mexican Government, and that in the determination of the boundaries of the public domain, the Government should have been treated like any other landowner, and not have been allowed, by its general claim of ownership, to menace and throw a cloud on individual titles. Another portion of the law which is unjust is that which is known as "the eleven-league clause" in section 13. The Mexican regulations limiting certain classes of grants to 11 square leagues became operative in 1828. Of course it could have no application to grants made before its enactment. And yet this clause in our law would apply the limitation to grants made by Spanish authority more than a century before the Republic of Mexico had an existence. Nothing could be more absurd as a legal proposition or more unjust as an equitable one. To say to a man who owns 100 acres of land that hereafter he can hold title to only 50 is practical confiscation of the remainder; and to say to the owner of a tract containing 20 square leagues that he can only have 11 confirmed to him is the same. The land court is fortunately composed of judges not only of great ability but of absolute fairness. They have found, in their administration of the law that in a number of cases a strict compliance with its provisions would work great injustice and hardship, depriving good citizens of lands which they and their ancestors had occupied for generations. They recommend certain amendments to cover such cases, and I earnestly hope that their recommendations may be enacted into law. A great nation like the United States does not wish to deprive its poorer citizens of the little homes which their ancestors with much labor changed from deserts into fruitful fields, and in the protection of which from the Indians of the plains many sacrificed their lives. POPULATION. Very little of importance can be added to the full tables of population inserted in my report for 1890. Census Bulletin No. 129, issued October 27, 1891, contains the figures as finally corrected, and as they vary slightly from those previously reported, they are reproduced here by counties. The population of the eight cities and towns having 1,000 or more inhabitants, in the order of their rank, is as follows: The total of 153,593 is divided as follows as to color: The proportion of foreign population is a little less than 8 to 100 of native birth, being a much smaller percentage than exists in any of the new States, and less than in any of the older sections of the country, except a few localities in the South. The division of the sexes is as follows: Male.. 83, 055 70, 538 As previously reported, the real population of the Territory at the time of the census was not far from 185,000, the reason of the failure to return them fully being explained in my report of 1890. There is now a healthy but gradual growth all over the Territory. The most rapid increase is in the Pecos Valley, and principally in Eddy County. This has been caused by the natural advantages of that section, supplemented by an irrigation system of great excellence and active advertising. Similar enterprise in other localities will procure like results. LEGISLATION. No legislature has met since the twenty-ninth session, which expired on February 26, 1891. A legislature is to be elected in the coming November and will commence its session late in December. As the late legislature failed to pass an apportionment act, it became the duty of the governor, in accordance with the act of January 26, 1860, to make the apportionment under the census of 1890. The representative population amounted to 143,854, being arrived at by deducting 8,278 Indians and 1,461 soldiers from the total population of 153,593. For practical purposes the representative pepulation was 144,000, and as the council consists of 12 members and the house of 24, it made the basis of the apportionment 12,000 persons to a council district, and 6,000 to a House district. In some instances the population of counties was so irregular as to make it very difficult to apportion them equitably; but the districts as finally established are believed to be as fairly and justly constituted as was possible. They are as follows: COUNCIL DISTRICTS. First district (Colfax and Mora counties), one member. Second district (San Miguel County, including Guadalupe County), two members. Third district (Taos, Rio Arriba and San Juan counties), two members. Fourth district (Santa Fe County), one member. Fifth district (Bernalillo County), two members. Sixth district (Valencia County), one member. Seventh district (Socorro and Sierra counties), one member. Eighth district (Grant and Donna Ana counties), one member. Ninth district (Grant, Donna Ana, Lincoln, Chaves, and Eddy counties), one member. REPRESENTATIVE DISTRICTS. First district (Colfax County), one representative. Second district (Mora County), one representative. Third district (Colfax and Mora counties), one representative. Fourth district (San Miguel County (if Guadalupe County be not legally constituted), four representatives; or if Guadalupe County be legally constituted, then and in that case, San Miguel County, three representatives; Guadalupe County, one representative. Fifth district (Santa Fe County), two representatives. Sixth district (Taos County), one representative. Seventh district (Rio Arriba County), one representative. Eighth district (Taos, Rio Arriba, an 1 San Juan counties), two representatives. Ninth district (Bernalillo County), three representatives. Tenth district (Valencia County), two representatives. Eleventh district (Socorro and Sierra counties), two representatives. Twelfth district (Donna Ana County), one representative. Thirteenth district (Grant County), one representative. Fourteenth district (Donna Ana and Grant counties), one representative. Fifteenth district (Lincoln, Chaves, and Eddy counties), one representative. FINANCES. The total assessed valuation of property in the Territory in 1887 was $15,462,459; in 1833, it was $15,699,723; in 1889, $45,041,010; in 1890, $15,199,847; and in 1891, $15,329,563. There has been a large anl steady decrease in the assessed value of cattle during the last four or five years, and this would have caused a very considerable re luction in the aggregates but for the increased value of other kinds. The valuation, by counties, in 1891 was as follows: The Territorial indebtedness at the close of the forty-second fiscal The total amount at the end of the previous year was $866,433.03. The differences are as follows: A reduction in the penitentiary bonds from $120,000 to $103,000 caused by the purchase of $11,000 of the bonds. A reduction of the outstanding warrants from $140,433.03 to $130,806.12. Thus there has been a reduction of the old indebtedness of $26,627.91. Meanwhile $25,000 of bonds for the erection of the insane asylum had been issued, leaving the net reduction $1,627.91. This certainly is a satisfactory showing, as the Territory has the full value of $25,000 in the asylum building. The expenditures during the forty-second fiscal year were as follows: Penitentiary current expense. Capitol current expense.. Salary. Court expenses. Miscellaneous Territorial institutions $34,749.90 3,722.66 28, 713.92 57, 119.64 20, 130.49 Compensation of assessors. Transportation of convicts. Interest on warrants.. School fund (from licenses to insurance agents). Deficit of 1889-'90. Pay of officers and employés twenty-ninth legislative assembly Total...... 74, 444.25 1,044.90 1,936. 39 5,936.92 2, 368.94 36, 392. 27 1,504. 12 2,859.00 270, 923.40 The following are the amounts of warrants issued in payment of claims accrued during the forty-first fiscal year and prior to March 3, 1889: Court allowances during the forty-first fiscal year Deficit salaries forty-first fiscal year. Accounts prior to March 3, 1889.. Total.. $4,416. 08 61.09 710. 19 3, 134.07 387.42 8, 708.85 |