[To Charles Bradbury, Battle Creek, Idaho, July 23, 1885.]

Referring to your letter of April 9, 1885, you are advised that final proof on desertland entries must show that the land has actually been reclaimed from a desert state to an agricultural condition. The raising of a crop without irrigation is not evidence of reclamation. But where land would not, without artificial irrigation, produce any agricultural crop, it must be reclaimed by conducting water upon it and upon every subdivision of it. There must be a proprietorship of sufficient water to continue the irrigation and make the reclamation perpetual, and the reclamation must be proven by evidence showing its manner and extent and the results attained, as indicated in the forms of proof prescribed by official regulations.

I shall require evidence that the law has been complied with in form and in spirit. I do not think the fact that crops can be raised is established until it is shown that crops have been raised, and it must also be shown that the raising of the crop is the result of reclamation, without which the crop could not have been raised.

The purpose of the desert-land act is not to enable persons to acquire title to 640acre tracts of public land by mere formalities and constructive compliance with the law. The purpose is to secure the actual and permanent reclamation of land which in a natural state is unproductive. This, it was assumed, would involve an expense that persons entering a single quarter section could not be expected to incur. Inducement was therefore held out by the offer of title to a square mile of land, in consideration of the cost and labor required to be expended upon it in order to bring it into a productive condition. That cost and labor is a part of the price of the landa price to be paid to the public by the purchasers in serving a public benefit while reaping a private advantage.

The question before me in any case is one of evidence. Has the stipulated service been performed? Has the land been actually reclaimed? If it has, proof can be easily furnished, and there can be no hardship in requiring that proof to be conclusive.

A rule having been adopted that, in publishing notices to make final proof under the act of March 3, 1879, the register, in selecting the paper for publication under the act (which employs the same language as is used in the mineral law in respect to the publication of the notices of mineral applicants), may, in the exercise of his discretion, select the one practically nearest the land by the usual route of travel, the following circular, adhering strictly to the letter of the law, was issued:

[Circular.]

PUBLICATION OF NOTICES.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., April 21, 1885.

REGISTERS and RECEIVERS United States Land Offices:

GENTLEMEN: Referring to circular of this office of July 31, 1884, relative to the designation of newspapers for the publication of final-proof notices, you are instructed that you have no discretion under the law to designate any other than the newspaper "nearest the land" for such purpose when such paper is a "newspaper of general circulation," as defined in said circular. But you will in all cases designate the newspaper of general circulation that is published nearest the land, geographically measured. When two or more such newspapers are published in the same town, nearest the land, you may select the one which, in your honest and impartial judgment as public officers, will best subserve the purpose of the law and general interests of the

public. But in no case will you permit your selections to be governed by prejudice, favoritism, or personal interest.

The circular of July 31, 1884, is modified in accordance herewith.

For the protection of entrymen you should see to it that newspaper charges do not exceed the rates established by state or territorial laws for the publication of legal notices, and report to this office should any infraction of this order occur. WM. A. J. SPARKS,

Approved:

L. Q. C. LAMAR,

Secretary.

Commissioner.

Respecting unlawful control of the public lands, prohibited by the act of February 25, 1885, the following letter was written:

J. F. HANSFord,

Salina, Cal.:

AUGUST 15, 1885.

You are advised that the act of Congress of February 25, 1885, prohibits the assertion of unlawful control over public lands or the prevention of settlements by force, threat, or intimidation, and that citizens have a remedy for violations of the act by laying the proper information before the United States district attorney. You have also a remedy in the local courts of your county and state for your personal protection and the protection of your property.

It was deemed in the interest of the public service to issue the following order as to "special" cases and circular as to the distribution of blanks:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., April 13, 1885.

No action whatever shall be taken in any case heretofore made "special" until it has been reached in its regular order for examination, except by written order of the Commissioner.

All clerks having upon their desks cases heretofore made "special" which have not been reached in their regular order for examination will suspend action thereon and indorse on the jackets the following note: "April 13, 1885. Suspended by order of the Commissioner until reached in regular order;" after which they will deliver the cases to the docket clerk. As such cases reach their desks, from time to time, they will at once make a similar disposition of them.

The docket clerk, upon receiving the cases as above, will place them in the unexamined files, keeping a record of the date of entry and docket number of all cases so suspended. When they are reached in their regular order he will again assign them for examination.

WM. A. J. SPARKS,
Commissioner.

[Circular.]

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., June 24, 1885.

REGISTERS and RECEIVERS United States Land Offices:

GENTLEMEN: Blank forms of applications, affidavits, proofs, notices, &c., for the entry of lands under the public land laws are furnished by this office for the use only of claimants personally, and will not hereafter be supplied by you to attorneys, clerks

of courts, notaries public, or other officers or persons. You will strictly economize the use of blanks now on hand in your respective offices, in accordance with these instructions. Sample copies may be furnished for printing, but not otherwise. WM. A. J. SPARKS, Commissioner.

Approved:

L. Q. C. LAMAR,

Secretary.

The following report was made respecting entries of lands in the Zuñi Indian reservation, New Mexico, allowed through erroneous instructions given to the local land officers in 1882 as to the location of its northern boundary:

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

GENERAL LAND OFFICE, Washington, D. C., September 19, 1885.

SIR: I am in receipt by departmental reference of the 17th ultimo, for report and recommendation, of a letter from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated 15th ultimo, relative to certain homestead and desert-land entries within the Zuñi Indian reservation in New Mexico, and recommending the cancellation thereof.

The entries in question are the following:

Desert No. 53, made December 26, 1882, by O. B. Stout, for Sec. 18, T. 12 N., R. 16 W. Desert No. 54, made December 26, 1882, by William F. Tucker, jr., for Sec. 8, Ț. 12 N., R. 16 W.

Desert No. 62, made January 18, 1883, by Henry W. Lawton, for Sec. 24, T. 12 N., R. 17 W.

Homestead No. 1675, made January 27, 1883, by William F. Tucker, jr., for the S. NE. and N. † SE. † Sec. 34, T. 12 N., R. 17 W.

Homestead No. 1678, made January 27, 1883, by Henry Lawton, for the SW. Sec. 34, T. 12 N., R. 17 W.

By executive order dated March 16, 1877, certain lands were set apart for the Zuñi Indians as follows:

"EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 16, 1877.

"It is hereby ordered that the following described tract of country in the Territory of New Mexico, viz: Beginning at the 136th mile-stone on the western boundary-line of the Territory of New Mexico, and running thence north 61° 45′ east 31 miles and eight-tenths of a mile to the crest of the mountain a short distance above Nutrias Spring; thence due south 12 miles to a point in the hills a short distance southeast of the Ojo Pescada ; thence south 61° 45′ west to the 148th mile-stone on the western boundary-line of said territory; thence north with said boundary-line to the place of beginning, be and the same hereby is withdrawn from sale and set apart as a reservation for the use and occupancy of the Zuñi Pueblo Indians.

"R. B. HAYES."

At the date of this order the lands were unsurveyed. A territorial map of New Mexico represented the Nutria Springs as located some 3 miles south of the true location as afterward found by the township surveys. A pencil line protracted upon the territorial map from the 136th mile-post on the western boundary of New Mexico to the point erroneously designated as Nutria Springs brought the northern line of the res. ervation apparently below the tracts which were afterward surveyed as Secs. 8 and 18, T. 12, R. 16, and Secs. 24 and 34, T. 12, R. 17, thus making it appear that said sections and others along the river Nutria, and embracing the cultivated lands and irrigating ditches of the Zuñis, were excluded from the reservation intended to embrace them.

On December 7, 1882, a letter was written in this office to the register and receiver at Santa Fé, stating that "as near as can be ascertained from our records T. 12 N. of R. 16 W. is outside, while of T. 12 N. of R. 17 W. probably only Secs. 25, 26, 33, and 36 are within the reservation."

entryman intends the land for a home and actually lives upon it, and further complies in good faith with the laws relative to improvement and cultivation.

The abandonment of residence and removal of improvements upon making preemption entry or commuting a homestead iudicate, prima facie, that the entry was not made in good faith. Entries not made in good faith are liable to contest, investigation, and cancellation.

[To Receiver B. E. Hutchinson, Aberdeen, Dak., June 16, 1885.]

I am in receipt of your letter of the 9th inst., referring to register and receiver's letter addressed to this office February 8, 1883, to which you state you have received no response, and from which you quote the following: "The country is covered with claims, and thousands of patents have been issued on such proof (one or two days' residence a week) in towns and cities of the northwest. Men carrying on business in town, and actually living there with their families, take up claims and haye a constructive residence on them-mechanics, teachers, laborers, merchants, lawyers, bankers, &c. This has been so universal and so long recognized by the department that we have not felt at liberty to refuse entry on such proof, though personally aware that the residence was not such as the law originally contemplated."

You also refer to certain cases where proofs were rejected by you for failure of compliance with law and your decisions were reversed by this office.

It is my purpose to enforce the laws of Congress and to require an honest and actual compliance with law by claimants under the public-land system, and not to permit or condone the frauds and evasions to which you refer. This is required by the highest consideration of the public interests in the public-land states and territories not less than by official obligations.

I mean that the public-land system shall be honestly administered, that honest settlers shall be protected in their right to acquire public lands by an actual inhabitancy of the soil, and that fictitious and fraudulent claims, and claims based upon pretexts and "constructive" compliance with the law, shall not be suffered to impose either upon the Government or upon those citizens who are really settlers in good faith. You are authorized and expected to refuse entry in all cases where you are not satisfied that the settler has acted in good faith, and that the law has been fully and honestly complied with.

[To Register and Receiver, Huron, Dak., June 24, 1885; case of John T. Ronayne.]

I am in receipt of the receiver's letter of May 5, 1885, transmitting the petition of John T. Ronayne, asking the reinstatement of his cash entry No. 614, made December 2, 1883, in support of his homestead entry No. 19780 (Mitchell series), NW. of Sec. 31, Tp. 110 N., R. 59 W., made May 8, 1882.

By letter "C" of September 7, 1883, said cash entry was suspended and Ronayne was required to furnish supplemental proof, showing with some degree of accuracy the periods during which he was respectively absent from and residing upon his claim, as the proof submitted was too indefinite and vague to be of any value in determining whether or not he had in good faith endeavored to comply with legal requirements as to residence, as it was stated that he had been absent on business, not to exceed two or three weeks at any one time.

Upon your report of January 25, 1884, that Ronayne had been duly notified of such action and made no response thereto his cash entry was held for cancellation by letter "C" of February 15, 1884, from which action you reported, August 8, 1884, he had taken no appeal after due notice thereof, and said cash entry was accordingly canceled by letter "C" of December 1, 1884.

It was not intended by the action taken in this case to deprive Ronayne of all rights under his homestead entry, which still remains intact, but only to insist that before obtaining title to the land he should esta .sh an actual residence thereon

and remain there a sufficient length of time to show his good faith. Ronayne's plea that he had no means of support is not well taken, for if he had made his entry in good faith and continued to reside upon the land, as contemplated by law, it is, I think, fair to presume he could have maintained himself by cultivating the soil on his own claim, so that he need not have been compelled to return to Iowa and "work on his father's farm" for a living.

In support of the application for relief Ronayne's counsel cite the decision of the Department, made October 31, 1884, in the case of John A. McDonald, a copy of which was sent you November 5, 1884.

I am well aware that the Hon. Acting Secretary accepted as sufficient the slight proof of residence submitted by McDonald, and I have not overlooked the recent liberal decision of the Department in the case of Lauren Dunlap (3 L. D., p. 545), but am disposed to regard these decisions rather as having been based upon exceptional circumstances than as precedents to be followed by this office in every instance where the good faith of a claimant appears questionable, for numerous decisions have emanated from the Secretary's office (among them Byrne vs. Catlin, 5 Copp's L. O., p. 146; Carland vs. Flanagan, 10 Copp's L. O., p. 40; Plugert vs. Empey, 11 L. O., 20, 2 L. D., 152; J. H. Abrams, 11 L. O., 198, 3 L. D., 106; and Cleaves vs. French, 12 L. O., 54, 3 L. D., 533) in which a much stricter construction of the law has been insisted upon, and which I prefer to follow.

The petition is denied, and you will advise Ronayne that any defense he may have to make in support of his entry should be submitted at the hearing already ordered by you on Gardner's application to contest; and if he succeeds in that suit, there will be no objection to his offering new proof when he can show compliance with law.

[To Register and Receiver, Valentine, Neb, June 30, 1885.]

Referring to the register's letter of the 16th instant, I have to direct that in the future you will be governed by the following instructions relating to proof in support of pre-emption claims and homestead entries commuted under section 2301 U. S. Revised Statutes.

The claimant must show at least six months' residence next preceding date of final proof, which must be made on the day and at the place advertised. Residence must be actual inhabitancy of, and not occasional visits to, the land. The party must actually reside upon, cultivate, and improve the land for at least the period above mentioned. Persons doing business in town and residing there or elsewhere than on the land entered or filed for, or otherwise not actually living on the land, must not be allowed to acquire title thereto by pretexts or assumption of "constructive" residence. The character of the improvements and amount of cultivation must be such as will evidence entire good faith on the part of the claimant.

Persons applying to give notice of their intention to submit proof should be advised that it will be a useless expenditure of time and money if they will not be able on the day fixed to show full and actual compliance with the law.

In respect to statements made in the affidavits of applicants upon making original homestead or timber-culture entry the following rule was prescribed:

[To Register and Receiver, Huron, Dak., April 17, 1885.]

In many instances applicants for homestead and timber-culture entries swear in their affidavits that they are "citizens of the United States."

In future you will require them to swear specifically whether they are native-born or naturalized citizens or have made declaration of intention relative to citizenship. When not "native born," they will be required to furnish record evidence, as provided in instructions previously issued, that they have complied with the law relating to citizenship.