18 HOW TO GET A FAKM, 



the bill persevered in their determination to provide 

 free homes for the poor ; and overcoming all oppo 

 sition, passed the present law, which Mr. Lincoln, 

 on the 20th of May, 1862, did not hesitate to sign. 

 The provisions of this act are as follow : 



AN ACT to Secure Homesteads to Actual Settlers on the Public 

 Domain, and to Provide a Bounty for Soldiers in lieu of Grants 

 of the Public lands. 



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 

 of the United States of America in Congress assembled : 

 That any person who is the head of a family, or who has 

 arrived at the age of twenty-one years, and is a citizen of 

 the United States, or who shall have filed his declaration of 

 intention to become such, as required by the naturalization 

 laws of the United States, and who has never borne arms 

 against the United States Government, or given aid and 

 comfort to its enemies, shall, from and after the 1st of 

 January, 1863, be entitled to enter one quarter section, or 

 a less quantity, of unappropriated public lands, upon which 

 said person may have filed a pre-emption claim, or which 

 may, at the time the application is made, be subject to pre 

 emption at $1.25, or less, per acre; or eighty acres or less 

 of such unappropriated lands, at $2.50 per acre, to be lo 

 cated in a body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of 

 the public lands, and after the same shall have been sur 

 veyed : Provided, That any person owning and residing on 

 land may, under the provisions of this act, enter other land 

 lying contiguous to his or her said land, which shall not, 

 with the land so already owned and occupied, exceed in the 

 aggregate 100 acres. 



SECTION 2. And be it further enacted, That the person 

 applying for the benefit of this act shall, upon application 

 to the Register of the Land-office in which he or she is 



