30 GRASS LANDS OF THE SOUTH ALASKA COAST. 



recognize that there are such outstanding riglits ; but, unless soldiers' additional 

 lioniestead rights are thereby considered as scrip rights, this Dejiartnient is not 

 advised as to any other law i)eruiittlng the exercise of any such rights in the 

 district of Alaska. Soldiers' additional homestead applications, under sections 

 2306 and 2307, Revised Statutes, are received as heretofore, but not more than 

 160 acres can be taken in a single body. 



The act of 1898 is amended so as to increase the amount of land which may 

 be entered as a homestead in the district of Alaska to 320 acres, and in providing 

 therefor grants such rights to "any person who is qualified under existing laws 

 to make homestead entry of the public lands of the United States who has 

 settled upon, or who shall hereafter settle vipon, any of the public lands of the 

 United States situated in the district of Alaska, whether surveyed or unsur- 

 veyed." If a person he qualified, therefore, to make homestead entry under 

 existing laws, he may enter not to exceed 320 acres, upon which he may have 

 settled, in the district of Alaska, and without regard to the amount he might be 

 authorized to make homestead entry of elsewhere ; but the right to locate • a 

 soldier's additional homestead right in the district of Alaska, without settle- 

 ment, is not thereby changed. Only 100 acres or less may be comnuited. 



No entry of any kind in the district of Alaska can, however, be allowed for 

 land extending more than 160 rods along the shore of any navigable water, 

 which is twice the extent originally perniitted by the act of 1808, and along 

 such shore a space of at least 80 rods is reserved between all claims, being the 

 same as originally provided in the act of 1898. 



HOMESTEADS. 



The homestead laws secure to qualified persons the right to settle upon, 

 enter, and acquire title to not exceeding 320 acres of public land, by establishing 

 and maintaining residence thereon and improving and cultivating the land for 

 the continuous period of five years. 



A homestead entryman must be the head of a family or a person who has 

 arrived at the age of 21 years, and a citizen of the United States, or one who 

 has filed his declaration of intention to become such, as required by the nat- 

 uralization laws, to which section 5 of the act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. L., 

 1095), attaches the conditions that he must not be the proprietor of more than 

 160 acres of land in any State or Territory, and that since August 30, 1890, 

 he has not acquired title to, nor is now claiming under any of the agricultural 

 public-land laws, an amount of land which, together with the land now applied 

 for, will exceed in the aggregate 320 acres. 



Where a wife has been divorced from her husband or deserted, so that she 

 is dependent upon her own resources for support, she can make homestead 

 entry as the head of a family or as a femme sole. 



Where an unmarried w^onian settles upon a tract of public land, improves 

 the same, establishes and maintains a i)ona fide residence thereon with the 

 intention of appropriating the same for a home under the homestead law, and 

 thereafter marries before making entry of said land, or before making appli- 

 cation to enter said land, she does not, on account of her marriage, forfeit her 

 right to make entry and receive patent for the land : Provided, That she does 

 not abandon her residence on said land and is otherwise qualified to make 

 homestead entry: And provided fitrtlier, That the man whom she marries is 

 not, at the time of their marriage, claiming a separate tract of land under the 

 homestead law. (Act June 6, 1900, 31 Stat. L., 683.) 



