atus of the innocent children, the offspring of this system,
and of the possibly innocent plural wives. But as an institution
polygamy should be banished from the land.

While this is being done I invite the attention of Congress to another,
though perhaps no less an evil--the importation of Chinese women, but
few of whom are brought to our shores to pursue honorable or useful
occupations.

Observations while visiting the Territories of Wyoming, Utah, and
Colorado during the past autumn convinced me that existing laws
regulating the disposition of public lands, timber, etc., and probably
the mining laws themselves, are very defective and should be carefully
amended, and at an early day. Territory where cultivation of the soil
can only be followed by irrigation, and where irrigation is not
practicable the lands can only be used as pasturage, and this only where
stock can reach water (to quench its thirst), can not be governed by the
same laws as to entries as lands every acre of which is an independent
estate by itself.

Land must be held in larger quantities to justify the expense of
conducting water upon it to make it fruitful, or to justify utilizing
it as pasturage. The timber in most of the Territories is principally
confined to the mountain regions, which are held for entry in small
quantities only, and as mineral lands. The timber is the property of the
United States, for the disposal of which there is now no adequate law.
The settler must become a consumer of this timber, whether he lives upon
the plain or engages in working the mines. Hence every man becomes
either a trespasser himself or knowingly a patron of trespassers.

My opportunities for observation were not sufficient to justify me in
recommending specific legislation on these subjects, but I do recommend
that a joint committee of the two Houses of Congress, sufficiently large
to be divided into subcommittees, be organized to visit all the mining
States and Territories during the coming summer, and that the committee
shall report to Congress at the next session such laws or amendments
to laws as it may deem necessary to secure the best interests of the
Government and the people of these Territories, who are doing so much
for their development.

I am sure the citizens occupying the territory described do not wish to
be trespassers, nor will they be if legal ways are provided for them to
become owners of these actual necessities of their position.