Under the policy of free grants to railroads, war veterans, homesteaders, and to the public free school fund, the unappropriated public domain was rapidly passing from state ownership. During the years 1879-1880 the general land office issued certificates for 21,287,408 acres of the public lands, and the estimated amount of free land remaining was, exclusive of Greer County, 17,391,810 acres.1 In 1881 there were extensions of this policy. A grant of 1,280 acres was made to each disabled Texas Confederate veteran and to the unmarried widows of those killed in the Confederate service;2 the grant of 640 acres which was provided in 1879 for each indigent veteran of the Texas Revolution was increased to 1,280 acres;3 and 300 leagues (1,328,400 acres) were reserved for the benefit of the free schools of unorganized counties, each county to receive upon organization four leagues.4 During the years 1881-1882 certificates were issued by the general land office to 25,206,505 acres. The total area for which certificates were issued during the four years 1879-1882 was 46,493,913 acres, or 48 per cent of the free public domain on September 1, 1861.

1 Land Office Report, 1879-1880. 2Laws of 1881, p. 122. 3Laws of 1881, p. 35. 4Laws of 1881, p. 65.

The first halt to the policy of abundant giving away of the lands was called in 1882, when all laws granting land for the construction of railroads, canals, and ditches were repealed.1 It was believed that there was not enough unappropriated land to justify a continuance of such grants.2 The last railroad grant made by the national government was in 1871. The reasons for the discontinuance of national aid were that the land was needed for future homesteaders and that the growth of population had made government aid less necessary. Such reasons doubtless influenced the action of Texas in 1882. The policy of donation of land in aid of internal improvements had been followed since 1854, except during the years 1869-1873. The important railway lines whose construction was aided by land grants are the Houston and Texas Central; the Southern Pacific; the Gulf, Colorado and Sante Fe; the Missouri, Kansas and Texas; the Texas and Pacific; the International and Great Northern; and the St. Louis Southwestern. The net grants to railroads approximated 32,400,000 acres; the grants to other internal improvements amounted to 4,088,000 acres, making a total of 36,488,000 acres.3 The laws required the railroads to alienate the lands granted, but this requirement was evaded in some instances under the guise of transfers or by the formation of land companies composed of the railway stockholders.4 The abuses, however, were minor, and the land grant policy by encouraging the construction of railroads indirectly but powerfully promoted the growth of population and industry in the state.5

The land reserved in 1879 for the purpose of securing a new state capitol was not sold piecemeal by the state, but a contract was made whereby a syndicate built the capitol in return for 3,000,000 acres.

The sale of the land of the public debt reservation at only fifty cents an acre turned out badly for the state. The bonds of the state could not be obtained except by purchase in the open market, and there they commanded a high premium. The high premium was partly due to the demand of the school fund for the bonds. Half of the proceeds of the sale of the lands in the public debt reservation went to the school fund, and the fund was restricted to investment in United States and State of Texas bonds. As long as this restriction existed, there was competition between the state and the school fund in the purchase of the bonds, the state wishing to cancel them, the school fund to secure them as an investment. The urgent need of a change in the price of the lands and in the purpose to which the proceeds of sale were devoted were presented by the governor to the special session of the legislature in 1882, but the interest in congressional redistricting and the strength of the land lobby resulted in no change being then made by the legislature.1

1 Laws of 1882, p. 3.

2 The Report of the Land Office for 1881-2 gave 7,814,695 acres to be the amount by which the grants exceeded the available public domain. 3Report of the Land Office, 1910. 4Message of Governor Culberson, January 16, 1895. 5The Galveston News, April 14, 1882.

The recovery of industry from the panic of 1873 was observable in 1879, and the upward swing of enterprise in the years 1881, 1882 and 1883 was pronounced, showing itself in Texas among other ways in feverish land speculation. As a result of the "Fifty Cents Law" and the imperfect legislation respecting the lands of the school and other special funds, the-public lands were the center of the land speculation. The inadequacy of the land laws to protect the interest of the state and of its trust funds was realized, and until the laws could be overhauled the legislature in 1883 withdrew all the public lands from sale.2 The inroads which were being made upon the unappropriated public domain by the act granting 1,280 acres to disabled Confederate soldiers were checked by the repeal of the act.3 Under this land pension law 1,979,852 acres were granted.4 The mistakes of the "Fifty Cents Law" as to the price of the land and the disposal of the proceeds of sale were stopped by a re-grant of the lands remaining in the public debt reservation. One million acres were given to the State University and one million to the public free school fund.5 The total number of acres sold for the payment of the public debt was 1,660,936.6

1 Galveston News, November 19, 1882. 2Laws of 1883, pp. 2 and 3. 3Laws of 1883, p. 13. 4Land Office Report, 1910, p. 30. 5Laws of 1883, p. 71.

6 Land Office Report, 1910, p. 30. The proceeds of sale were $884,786; Land Office Report, 1899, p. 30.

In 1887 the act of 1881 granting land to veterans of the Texas Revolution was repealed.1 The veterans received under the law of 1881 1,169,382 acres.

In 1898 the state awoke to the fact that not only was the unappropriated land exhausted but that the school fund had not received by several million acres the half of the unappropriated domain existing in 1876 which the Constitution of 1876 had given to it.2 This discovery led in 1899 to the abandonment of the homestead policy. Under this policy each head of a family without a homestead was entitled to receive free 160 acres and each single person 80 acres of the vacant and unappropriated public lands, provided they had lived on the land three years and had paid the surveying and land office fees which together amounted to between $15 and $20. Under this law 4,847,136 acres were granted as homesteads.3 An accounting between the state and the school fund was made in 1899 and it was found that the school fund was short its quota of land by 5,902,076 acres.4 In part settlement of this deficiency the school fund received all the unsurveyed and unappropriated public lands, except those included in lakes, bays, and islands.5 This appropriation to the school fund in 1899 brought to a close the experience of the state with its unappropriated public lands.6

1 Laws of 1887, p. 6.

2 Land Office Report, 1898. Hogue v. Baker, 92 Tex., 58 (1898).

3 Land Office Report, 1910.

4 Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office upon the Findings of the Special Commission Appointed under the Act of March 2, 1899. Laws of 1899, p. 14. Land Office Report, 1901-2.

5 Laws of 1899, p. 123. Laws of 1900, p. 29. The special commission of 1899 reported the unappropriated domain to be 5,167,075 acres of which 1,722,880 acres were in lakes, bays, etc. The school fund received 4,444,195 acres.

6 Since 1895 the state has charged a rental for the use of oyster beds planted or located within the public coast waters. Though called :a tax in the statute, the charge was more properly a rental. In the law of 1895 it was ten cents an acre per year for the first five years and twenty-five cents for each year thereafter; Laws of 1895, Reg. Sess., p. 170. In 1899 the charge was made fifteen cents per acre per year for the first four years twenty-five cents during the next four years, and $1 per acre thereafter. In 1907 the charge of $1 was changed to seventy-five cents. The rents are payable to the game, fish, and oyster commissioner. The amount received cannot be ascertained from any official reports.