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OFFICE OF LANDS. 



Advertising- Listed Lands 



The Department of the Interior has resumed advertising tracts of land listed under 

 the act of June 11, 1906. A copy of each notice sent by the Secretary of the Interior 

 to the local land officials will be supplied to the Forester, who will forward it at 

 once to the supervisor of the National Forest involved, to complete his records. 



Second Homestead Entries 



The attention of supervisors and field officers is called to the following act of Con- 

 providing for second homestead entries: 



AX ACT Providing for second homestead entries. 



Be it enacted hi/ the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 

 America in Omf/rrss assembled, That any person who, prior to the passage of this 

 act, has made entry under the homestead laws, but from any cause has lost, for- 

 feited, or abandoned the same, shall be entitled to the benefits of the homestead 

 law as though such former entry had not been made, and any person applying 

 for a second homestead under this act shall furnish the description and date of 

 his former entry: Provided, That the provisions of this act shall not apply to 

 any person whose former entry was canceled for fraud, or who relinquished the 

 former entry for a valuable consideration. 



Approved, February 8, 1908. 



Claims 



In the case of Patton v. Quackenbush (35 L. D., 561) it is held by the Secretary 

 of the Interior as follows: 



The fact that lands may be chiefly, valuable for the timber thereon does not 

 exclude them from settlement and entry under the homestead law, but it must 

 clearly appear that the settlement or entry upon such lands was made in good 

 faith for the purpose of making the tract a home; and where the entryman in 

 such case submits commutation proof and pays a price to cut short the period 

 of residence required by the homestead law, he invites scrutiny and challenges 

 judgment as to the good faith of his entry. 



Supervisors and Forest officers will take note of this ruling, and in making reports 

 upon homestead squatter claims or homestead entries will be careful to state every 

 fact and circumstance that tends to show the good or bad faith of the claimant. In 

 this connection attention is called to the note under claims in the Field Program 

 for February. While it is true that the homestead law does not require residence 

 on the land after final proof, yet where it is asserted that such land is claimed as and 

 for a home, the fact that claimant does not return to it after final proof has a bearing 

 on the good faith of such claim or entry, especially in a case where the claim has 

 upon it a considerable or heavy stand of timber. 



The supervisors should take the first opportunity to examine the decision of the 

 Secretary of the Interior in the case of Patton v. Quackenbush, dated May 9, 1907, 

 and found in. 35 L. D., 562fand following. The facts in this case show a colorable 

 compliance with the Homestead Law and an effort to perfect, by commutation proof, 

 a homestead entry for its timber. 



The land contained 11,000,000 feet of timber, worth $1 a thousand. The evidence 

 showed that the land would only be worth $20 per acre after the removal of the tim- 



