Timber and Stone Act

The legislation specifically noted that military, Indian, or other reservations of the United States within these territories were exempt.

The act was used by speculators who were able to get great expanses declared "unfit for farming" allowing them to increase their land holdings at minimal expense.

[2] In theory the purchaser was to make an affidavit that he was entering the land exclusively for his own use and that no association was to hold more than 160 acres (65 ha).

In this way, more than 90 percent of the several million acres of timberland privatized under the Act in Washington, Oregon, Nevada and California were fraudulently compiled.

[2] By the year 1923, twelve million acres of land had been transferred from the public domain to the private via this act.