(1r.y Uzroughou           sota the taxes, interest, penalties, etc. 
due and accrued reprasnted several times the ftiir appraised vVlue of 
the land. To mmt that eodition them      vm a general pructic on 1he 
,part of the ý'ounty ý;o158u loiters the~t they 6ould au lronis,
the unpaid 
taxea on the bnsis of 2/3 of the a    t which the United Attee wee to 
pry for the land. For emple ~ohn Doe owned 352O acres upon which the 
total of acred ta". wd penalties was $75, The United states 
offered to buy the lend fran him fr a considerution of   2,2b per acre 
Jýohr Ioe then settled with the county by paytnent of -1.b5 per aere,

rot, ing for hIi     f 7)¢ per aire, out of which he had t :et the 
coats incident to the transfer of title. 
 
         It is a reasonably sAfe assertion t -t of the total p     t 
 for land by the United states in northern Jiniasota one-half has been 
 rout   t the count is and In the ease of counties such as Cook and 
 Lake these enforced payn t of del inquant taxes kept the counties 
 frm bak  aptcy over - 1t  period of time. 
        The questlon arises as to whether this 3QpY',0 acres tut 
wa offered to Cox at 1W   per acre ,ts to e accepted by the state 
without any collection of back texes or whether the vendor was su- 
posed to pay such back taxes Out of the considertilon of 50% per 
acre or Vither the vendor had just complated the exploit ation of 
lar    timber vals upon which it necessarily had pald taies and waS 
offering the land At a brgaýin price before any further tax liabil-

ities ecld ancru. 
        That Is one espect of this secif i    ae to which you refer. 
Another is that in 1930'-31 the lack of roads Lreated a widesprad 
condition of economic inaccesslbility which later was  inimized by 
exten ive rad conetruction at public expease, with consequent ad- 
vyea. in values askd for land.    eS a matter of fact your own - tate- 
rent shows the state payi   a onsidertion of ,.A per sore for 
lands in the sn:  territory, but this extragt expenditure 
mininized by the closeley asocirted quotation of the higher price 
paid by the Unlted tsples, see paeqs 59 and L. (!encil c no1n and 
l15). 
 
        Also on Dpae 560pencil 0o. 1;) i _the statement "'nc of the

Conmistdfoers owned a large ares of land in the j- eto   a pur   e 
area   i    nh was lter sold to th goverment.-      stTis statent can have

only one purpoc*,, nfely, to carate in the mind of the average reader 
t e Impreýsion that the action of the Gonssioner Ini supportiNg th

xtenstion -f the purclase unit was  influenced primnriy by a parsonal 
profit -tiv° 
        The genersl therm aes to be that acquievscence by tax rever- 
sion. after printe owrship has stripped the land of all severable 
valis is a wholly sound process and in fact preferable to =y outlay 
of public funds as a means of aoquiring lands beore the process of 
devastnti6  had proceeded so far as to necessitate the evontual ex- 
penditure of su   much greater than hose which Initially would 1   e 
been nacessnry to acquire the land with a reasonable forest capital 
and In less eroded codition. 
 
 
11'rof . IT."H.Chapynan