David Josiah Brewer

“ It is not to be admitted that the titles by which so much property in this country and so many rights are held, purporting to emanate from the authoritative action of the officers of the government, and, as in this case, under the seal and signature of the president of the United States himself, shall be dependent upon the hazard of successful resistance to the whims and caprices of every person who chooses to attack them in a court of justice ”

“ The significant word in the statute is 'chiefly.' Trees growing on a tract may be so few in number or so small in size as to be easily cleared off, or not seriously to affect its present and general fitness for cultivation. So, on the other hand, where a tract is mainly covered with a dense forest, there may be small openings scattered through it susceptible of culivation. The chief value of the land must be its timber, and that timber must be so extensive and so dense as to render the tract as a whole, in its present state, substantially unfit for cultivation. ”

“ It simply shows that Montgomery wanted to purchase a large body of timber lands, and did purchase them. This was perfectly legitimate, and implies or suggests no wrong. The act does not, in any respect, limit the dominion which the purchaser has over the land after its purchase from the government, or restrict, in the slightest, his power of alienation. All that it denounces is a prior agreement,-the acting for another in the purchase. If when the title passes from the government no one save the purchaser has any claim upon it, or any contract or agreement for it, the act is satisfied. ”