LANDS HOMESTEADS. 45 



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 ab- 

 sence from the land for a period not exceeding five months in each 

 year after establishing residence, and upon the termination of such 

 absence the entryman shall file a notice of such 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 per- 

 son commuting must be at the time a citizen of the United States: 

 Provided, That when the person making entry dies before the offer 

 of final proof those succeeding to the entry must show that the entry- 

 man had complied with the law in all respects to the date of his 

 death and that they have since complied with the law in all respects, 

 as would have been required of the entryman 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 entry, and not less than one-eighth, beginning 

 with the third year 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 Secretary 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, nine- 

 teen hundred and four, commonly known as the Kinkaid Act, or 

 entries under the act of June seventeenth, 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 unper- 

 fected 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 the same to 

 each homestead entryman of record who may be affected thereby, by 

 ordinary mail to his last known address, and any such entryman may, 

 by giving notice within one hundred and twenty days after the pas- 

 sage 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. [But see next below, from sundry civil appropriation act 

 Aug. 21, 1912.] 



" Sec. 2297. If, at any time after the filing of the affidavit as re- 

 quired in section twenty-two hundred and ninety and before the 

 expiration of the three years mentioned in section twenty-two hun- 

 dred 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 hav- 

 ing 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 establish- 

 ing actual permanent residence upon the land : And provided further, 

 That where there may be climatic reasons, sickness, or other una void- 



