THREE- YEA R HOMES TEA D LAW 295 



year and of at least one-eighth for the next year and each succeeding year until final 

 proof, without regard to the particular year of the homestead period in which the 

 cultivation of the one-sixteenth was performed. 



Time for Proof on Entries. 



(16) The new law also requires that the proof shall be made within five years 

 from date of entry, and if the entry is to be administered under that law the depart- 

 ment is not authorized to extend the period within which proof may be made, but 

 when submitted after that time, in the absence of adverse claims, the entry may be 

 submitted to the board of equitable adjudiction for confirmation. 



(17) Respecting entries heretofore or hereafter made requiring payment for 

 the land entered in annual installments extending beyond the period of residence 

 required under the new law, the homesteader may make his final proof as in other cases, 

 but final certificate will not be issued until the entire purchase price has been paid. 



Very respectfully, 



CLAY TALLMAN, Commissioner. 

 Approved: 



ANDRIEUS A. JONES, 



First Assistant Secretary. 



-\N ACT To amend section twenty-two hundred and ninety-one and section twenty-two 



hundred and ninety-seven of the Revised Statutes of the United States relating to 



homesteads. 



Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 

 America in Congress assembled, That section twenty-two hundred and ninety-one and 

 section twenty-two hundred and ninety-seven of the Revised Statutes of the United States 

 be amended to read as follows: 



"Sec. 2291. No certificate, however, shall be given or patent issued therefor until the 

 expiration of three years from the date of such entr>'; and if at the expiration of such time, 

 or at any time within two years thereafter, the person making such entr>', or if he be dead 

 bis widow, or in case of her death his heirs or devisee, or in case of a widow making such 

 entry her heirs or devisee, in case of her death, proves by himself and by two credible 

 witnesses that he, she, or they have a habitable house upon the land and have actually 

 resided upon and cultivated the same for the term of three years succeeding the time of filing 

 the affidavit, and makes affidavit that no part of such land has been alienated, except as 

 provided in section twenty-two hundred and eighty-eight, and that he, she, or they will bear 

 true allegiance to the Government of the United States, then in such case he, she, or they, 

 if at that time citizens of the United States, shall be entitled to a patent, as In other cases 

 provided by law; Provided, That upon filing in the local land office notice of the beginning 

 of such absence the entryman shall be entitled to a continuous leave of absence from the 

 land for a period not exceeding five m.onths in each year after establishing residence, and 

 upon the termination of such absence the entr>'man shall file a notice of sucb termination in 

 the local land office, but in case of commutation the fourteen months' actual residence as 

 now required by law must be shown, and the person commuting must be at the time a 

 citizen of the United States: Provided, That when the person making entrj^ dies before the 

 offer of final proof those succeeding to the entry must show that the entryman had com- 

 plied with the law in all respects to the date of his death, and that they have since com- 

 plied with the law in all respects, as would have been required of the entrj'man had he lived, 

 excepting that they are relieved from any requirement of residence upon the land: Provided 

 further, That the entryman shall, in order to comply with the requirements of cultivation 

 herein provided for, cultivate not less than one-sixteenth of the area of his entry, beginning 

 with the second year of the ent^y^ and not less than one-eighth beginning, with the third y^ar 

 of the entry, and until final proof, except that in the case of entries under section six of the 

 enlarged-homestead law double the area of cultivation herein provided shall be required, but 

 the Secretarj^ of the Interior may. upon a satisfactory- showing, under rules and regulations 

 prescribed by him, reduce the required area of cultivation: Provided. That the above provision 

 as to cultivation shall not apply to entries under the act of April twenty-eighth, nineteen 

 hundred and four, commonly known as the Kinkaid Act, or entries under the act of .Tune 

 seventeen, nineteen hundred and two, commonly known as the reclamation act, and that 

 the provisions of this section relative to the homestead period shall apply to all unperfected 

 entries as well as entries hereafter made upon which residence is required: Provided, That the 

 Secretary of the Interior shall, within sixty days after the passage of this act, send a copy 

 of tha same to each homestead enti^yman of record who may be affected thereby by ordinary 

 mail to his last known address, and any such entryman may, by giving notice w^ithin one 

 hundred and twenty days after the passage of this act, by registered letter to the register 

 and receiver of the local land office, elect to make proof upon his entry under the law under 

 which the same was made without regard to the provisions of this act." 



"Sec. 2297. If at any time after the filing of the affidavit as required in section twenty- 

 two hundred and ninety, and before the expiration of the three years mentioned in section 

 twenty-two hundred and ninety-one, it is proved after due notice to the settler, to the 

 satisfaction of the register of the land office that the person having filed such affidavit has 

 failed to establish residence within six months after the date of entry, or abandoned the 

 land for more than six months at any time, then, and in that event, the land so entered 

 shall revert to the Government: Provided. That the three years' period of residence herein 

 fixed shall date from the time of establishing actual permanent residence upon the land: 

 And provided further. That where there may be climatic reasons, sickness, or other unavoid- 

 able cause, the Commissioner of the General Land Office may, in his discretion, allow the 

 settler twelve months from the date of filing in which to commence his residence on said 

 land under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe." 



Approved, June 6. 1912. (.37 Stat.. 123.) 



— It is worth a trip across the continent to see some of Montana's sunsets. 



