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NAVY DEPARTMENT,

December 18, 1830.

SIR: You are requested to furnish the Department with such information as you may possess, other than that contained in your report made to the Department, dated Washington city, July 3, 1829, on the following points:

The value of the lands purchased by the Secretary of the Navy, in behalf of the United States, of the Hon. Mr. White and Judge Breckenridge, situate near Pensacola, in Florida, &c., at the time such purchase was made, (in 1828,) as well as the value of the live oak timber on each tract fit for naval purposes. I am, respectfully, &c.

Commodore J. RODGERS,

J. BRANCH.

President of the Board of Commissioners of the Navy.

December 18, 1830.

SIR: I enclose a copy of a resolution of the House of Representatives of the 16th instant, calling for information respecting the purchase, &c. of live oak timber, near the Navy yard at Pensacola, and have to request you to furnish copies of all "papers connected with the purchase of live oak lands in Florida, the quantity purchased, the names of the persons from whom the purchases were made, the prices given, to whom paid, when paid, and on what authority," which may be in your office, and calculated to throw light upon the investigation.

AMOS KENDALL, Esq.

Fourth Auditor of the Treasury.

I am, respectfully, &c.

J. BRANCH.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19, 1830.

SIR: I would most respectfully suggest that the report of the inspectors of live oak in 1818, of which Mr. Hutton was one, in Louisiana and Florida, and which contains the most accurate information on the subject, would present a better view of it than any other, and should be included in the answer to the resolution.

I would also call your attention to the letter recently received by you from J. W. Dabney, disclosing certain frauds of deputy surveyors, by which the United States have lost the largest and best body of live oak lands in Florida. That letter you sent to the land office, but, being within your control, is embraced by the resolution.

I have the honor to be

Your most obedient servant,

Hon. JOHN BRANCH,

Secretary of the Navy U. S.

JOS. M. WHITE.

NAVY COMMISSIONERS' OFFICE,

20th Dec. 1830.

SIR: The Commissioners of the Navy have had the honor of receiving your letter of the 18th instant, and beg leave to observe that they have no information relatively to the lands purchased of Col. White and Judge Breckenridge, near Pensacola, other than that contained in the enclosed extract of a letter addressed to you on the 3d July, 1829.

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TREASURY DEPARTMENT,

Fourth Auditor's Office, 20th December, 1830.

SIR: In compliance with the request contained in your letter of the 18th instant, enclosing a copy of a resolution of the House of Representatives, passed the 16th instant, calling for information in relation to the purchase of live oak lands in Florida, I have the honor to transmit you herewith a copy of the account of Joseph M. White, Esq., for 3650 arpents of land in Florida, sold to the United States by him as the proprietor, or as the attorney for others, amounting to $10,261 11, sanctioned by the late Secretary of the Navy. I also transmit you a statement when and to whom payment was made for said purchase.

I return to you the original letter of Henry M. Breckenridge, Esq., with its enclosure, addressed to you under date the 18th April, 1829, on the subject of the live oak trees then growing on a part of the said land, which letter was referred to this office with his accounts.

I have the honor to be,

Hon. JOHN BRANCH,

Secretary of the Navy.

Very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant,
AMOS KENDALL.

NEW YORK, December 23, 1830.

SIR: I perceive by the late proceedings in Congress, that the Secretary of the Navy is called upon for information in regard to the subject of the purchases of live oak lands in Florida, and other matters connected therewith. Having been appointed an agent for the examination and survey of the lands of West Florida, in company with Charles Haire, and in the course of our explorations having examined very critically the lands purchased by Mr. Southard, and reported thereupon to your Department, I take the liber

ty, with great respect, to refer you to our report on this subject, on file in your office. It is that numbered 3, and of the date of the 24th October, 1828, and forwarded from the Choctawhatchee bay, W. Florida. A reference to this report will exhibit to you the information sought for; and the accompanying documents will furnish in detail the quantity of live oak land (only about ten acres around the residence of Judge Breckenridge, the residue being pine barren, and of no value,) embraced within the three tracts purchased by Government; and the schedule No. 2 gives the actual quantity of all the timber growing on the land at the time of the purchase; which latter information is particularly called for by the amendment to the original resolution of Mr. White, offered by the Hon. Mr. Speight, of North Carolina; a copy of which documents, I have the honor to request, may be communicated to Congress.

I take the liberty, very respectfully, to enclose you an extract from the report above referred to, which will show you the opinion of the agents in regard to this purchase, strengthened by the historical account of the land given by Mr. Williams.

On the subject of the live oak lands generally, and the means heretofore adopted for the preservation of the timber growing thereon proving insufficient, together with my ideas at full length on the subject of this purchase, and the modes proposed for the rearing of a nursery, I beg leave most respectfully to refer you to the communication which I had the honor to address you on the 16th July, 1829, and which I had the honor to leave in the hands of his Excellency the President of the United States, in your absence from the seat of Government.

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Late agent for the examination and survey of West Florida lands

The Hon. JOHN BRANCH,

Secretary of the Navy.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Committee on Naval Affairs, February 1, 1831.

SIR: The House have referred to the committee your answer to their resolution respecting live oak, and the committee are desirous to act on the whole subject. To enable them to do this, they would, respectfully, ask all such information as it may be in the power of the Department to give on the following points:

1. The location of the land reserved and purchased in the neighborhood of Pensacola, with a view of the propagation of live oak. A map designating the lots and claims appears to be the only mode of exhibiting these lo

cations.

2. The money paid for the land, and expended on and about it, to propagate live oak; giving the years in which the respective moneys are paid.

3. The quantity of live oak reported to the Department by its agents, with a brief statement of the nature and character of these reports.

4. Any other information touching the quantity of live oak growing on lands in the United States, its increase and diminution, and all information calculated to aid in forming an opinion whether a supply can probably be had from the natural growth, or should be secured by artificial propagation. On the map to be furnished, the committee desire that the tracts purchased at Pensacola may be designated as nearly as may be, as well as the claims to locate there, yet unsatisfied.

With esteem and respect,
Yours, &c.,

Hon. JOHN BRANCH,

Secretary of the Navy.

MICHAEL HOFFMAN.

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NAVY DEPARTMENT, February 7, 1831.

SIR: In compliance with the request contained in your letter of the 1st instant, relative to the live oak lands in Florida, I have the honor to enclose sundry papers.

From the vagueness of the boundaries expressed in the title papers, I must observe, that sufficient data do not exist in the Department by which a map may be delineated, exhibiting the information called for by your letter; but the President of the Naval Board, who has a personal knowledge of the lands in question, has promised to wait upon the committee, and it is hoped he will be able to furnish much information on the subject.

The paper marked A is a table of the moneys "paid for the lands, and expended on or about them, to propagate the live oak; giving the years in which the respective moneys were paid."

Paper marked B is a copy of letter from the Commissioner of the General Land Office, enclosing a copy of a letter to the land officers in Tallahassee, dated 23d October last, exhibiting the tracts in that section of the country which have been reserved from sale by the President of the United States, on the suggestion of the Navy Department. The enclosure referred to is herewith transmitted, marked C.

Various examinations have, from time to time, been made under the direction of this Department, to ascertain the quantity of live oak growing in the United States near navigable waters. Considerable portions of the maritime frontier of South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, and Louisiana, have been explored for this purpose. Agents are now, and have been for years past, steadily engaged in making surveys; and extensive reservations of public land, abounding in this valuable timber, have been exempted from sale by the President of the United States, on the recommendation of this Department, and in pursuance of the laws passed on the subject in the years 1817 and 1827. Paper marked D shows the reservations in Louisiana, and the paper marked C those in West Florida. Schedule marked E exhibits the quantity of live oak timber in that part of West Florida hitherto examined by the United States' agents.

Documents marked F and G are copies of letters from the Hon. E. D. White, now a member of Congress from the State of Louisiana, and Edward Chandler, Esq., United States' Attorney for the district of South Florida, containing very interesting information on the subject of live cak. The quantity of that timber reported to this Department by the United States' agents amounts to 2,214,855 cubic feet, as will appear by reference to papers marked E and H, the latter of which shows the general and special localities, and probable quantities of live oak timber suitable for naval purposes, (as far as has been ascertained,) on the Atlantic coast of the United States. It is to be observed, however, that a comparatively small portion of the public lands has been critically examined. The reports of the agents, as far as they go, seem to have been founded on accurate examinations, and may be considered as probably correct.

In the report made to the President of the United States at the commencement of the present session of Congress, an opinion is expressed, in reference to the planting of live oak acorns, that it is unnecessary, for the present, to engage in the artificial propagation of the live oak.

Some reasons for this opinion are assigned in the preceding paragraph. In addition to which, it may be stated, from sources entitled to entire confidence, that plants of young live oak spring up in great abundance wherever this timber, at any former period, has attained maturity and been cut down.

Mr. Breckenridge, in his communications to the Department, states that, on the small piece of land to which his culture has been confined, many thousands of young trees have been wholly or partially pruned, &c., and that more than seventy thousand may, in a short time, be brought into the same state of cultivation. Commodore Rodgers, in his report on the subject of the timber on the lands purchased by the Government, states that, although there are few grown trees on these lands, the young live oak has sprung up in great abundance, and appears to flourish in great luxuriance; and, indeed, from every quarter whence information has been obtained on the subject, it seems that this plant is produced in lavish prodigality by the hand of nature wherever the tree has once existed and been removed. Such being the facts of the case, where can be the danger of the extermination of this timber, or where the necessity for planting the acorns or transplanting the scions?

The preservation of the forests of young live oak, in common with other trees of larger growth, has been recommended to Congress as an object to be "prosecuted with an active and undeviating purpose;" and to this object the Department feels itself bound to devote the most unremitting attention. It is deemed proper to add, that whenever the national legislature shall determine to engage in the erection of establishments for the propagation and culture of plantations of timber for the use of the Navy, it is presumed it will speak its determination in language which will be explicit, and not leave its intention to be inferred by implication.

I am, respectfully,

Hon. MICHAEL HOFFMAN,

Your obedient servant,

JNO. BRANCH

Chairman of Naval Committee, House of Reps.

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