and annoyance to their respective neighborhoods, like much of the unimproved marsh lands in the immediate vicinity of settlements.

COUNTY TREASURERS.

Act No. 153, S. L. 1855, authorizing County Treasurers, under certain regulations, to receive money on account of the Trust Fund Lands in their respective counties, makes provision for the purchasers of any of these lands, their agents, assignees, or attorneys to pay interest, principal or penalty, to County Treasurers in any county in the State in which the lands lie, who shall have previously executed a good and sufficient bond to the State according to Sec. 5 of the Act.

According to Section 8, of this Act, the Commissioner of the Land Office is required to send out by the first of February of each year, to all the County Treasurers in the State, blank bonds with the penal sum fixed therein of not less than double the amount liable to come into their hands, to be executed by them with proper sureties, and return the same to the Land Office as soon thereafter as may be, without any definite time being fixed by the law. The Commissioner is also required by Section 9, of this Act, on or before the first of March of each year, to make out and transmit to such County Treasurers as may have that year previously filed their proper bonds with him, a complete statement from the books of the office, accurately describing all the different classes of Trust Fund Lands sold by the State in their respective Counties, the numbers of the certificates of purchase, name of the person to whom each certificate was issued, and the amount of both principal and interest due on each piece on the first day of March. It will readily be seen that, as the sale of the different classes of the State Trust Fund Lands shall increase this kind of labor required of the Land Office, which must be done with the utmost care, will also increase proportionably;

and as the County Treasurers may, or may not, at their option, execute bonds at any time up to the first of March of each year, it has followed, under the operation of this law, that a great amount of the transcripts from the books, prepared with much labor, have had to be annually made out and kept on file, to enable the Land Office to comply with the requirements of the law in promptly furnishing such County Treasurers transcripts from the books of this Department, at any time up to the first of March of each year, who may also choose to file their bonds in the Office by that time. As the law now is, much of this labor has to be performed in advance of the time of the bonds being executed by the Treasurer, upon the presumption that many of them may file their bonds in the Land Office so late, and with so short a notice, that the law making it the duty of the Commissioner to furnish all the County Treasurers with these transcripts promptly, as they file their bonds, could not otherwise be complied with.

It will easily be infered, therefore, that but fifteen or twenty out of forty County Treasurers in the State have ever filed their bonds, much of the labor required by the law is entirely lost. It is thought if the Land Office was required to send out the blank bonds before the 15th of January, and that the Treasurers, to entitle them to the transcripts from the books of the Land Office, that they might officially receive money on Trust Fund lands in their counties, were required to file their bonds in the Land Of fice before the 15th of February of each year, it would be an improvement by saving the department a large amount of useless labor under the usual operation of the law as it is.

All of which is respectfully submited.

SEYMOUR B. TREADWELL,
Commissioner.

STATEMENT of Swamp Lands sold by virtue of Section 9 of Act 31, of Extra Session of 1858, to adjoining owners and settlers.

STATEMENT of Swamp Lands sold at and since the Public Sale of July 28, to November 30, 1858.