per acre, or in gold and silver, or both together, in preference to any other person, and at any time before the same shall be offered for sale at auction: provided, that no person shall be entitled to the benefit of this act who has not settled and improved, or shall not settle and improve, such lands prior to the final allotment of the alternate sections to such railroads, by the General Land Office; and provided, further, that the price to be paid shall in all cases be two dollars and fifty cents per acre; or such other minimum price as is now fixed by law, or may be fixed upon lands hereafter granted; and no one person shall have the right of pre-emption to more than one hundred and sixty acres ; and provided, further, that any settler who has settled or may hereafter settle on lands heretofore reserved on account of claims under French, Spanish, or other grants, which have been or shall be hereafter declared by the Supreme Court of the United States to be invalid, shall be entitled to all the rights of pre-emption granted by this act and the act of fourth of September, eighteen hundred and forty-one, entitled "an act to appropriate the proceeds of the public lands, and to grant pre-emption rights," after the lands shall have been released from reservation, as if no reservation existed.

Approved March 3, 1853.

An Act for the Relief of Settlers on Lands reserved for Railroad

purposes.

Be it enacted, etc., that every settler on public lands which have been or may be withdrawn from market in consequence of proposed railroads, and who had settled thereon prior to such withdrawal, shall be entitled to pre-emption at the ordinary minimum to the lands settled on and cultivated by them: provided, they shall prove up their rights according to such rules and regulations as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, and pay for the same before the day that may be fixed by the President's proclamation for the restoration of said lands to market.

Approved, March 27, 1854.

The Washington Union gives the following as the mode of proceeding in making purchases of the public lands: When an individual applies to the register of a land district to purchase a tract of land, he is required to file a written "application." On such application the register indorses his certificate, showing the land is vacant and subject to entry. The certificate the applicant carries to the receiver, and it is the evidence on which the receiver permits pay

ments to be made, and issues his "original receipt," the duplicate of which is handed to the purchaser as his evidence of payment, and which is required to be surrendered when a patent is forwarded from the General Land Office for delivery. The "original receipt" is handed to the register, who indicates the sale on his township plat, enters the same on his tract book, and is transmitted by the register to the General Land Office, with the monthly abstract of sales and certificates of purchase.

This is the formula prescribed for individual purchases, and must be preserved not only for their protection in securing titles, but for the protection of the interests of the government. The law has established two officers in a land district-the register and receiver— and prescribed a mode of proceeding to serve as a check upon each other. If a claimant fails to observe the requirements, he does it at his peril. If he deposits money with any person connected with the district office, even with a receiver, without having filed a written application with the register, he does so at his own risk, the government not being responsible for any loss where the terms on which the law authorizes entries are departed from.

Townships are numbered north and south; and ranges east and west. A section of land embraces 640 acres, and is 320 rods, 80 chains, or 5280 feet square. An acre may be measured in any shape thus: 1 rod by 160 rods; 2 rods by 80; 4 rods by 40; or 1 chain by 10 chains; 160 square rods or 4840 square yards. A French arpent is about one-seventh less than an English acre; contains in France 100 square rods or perches of 18 feet each.

The following extracts from the "Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office," for the year 1858-59, will be of general interest:

"From the passage of the act of August 4, 1854, up to the close of the fiscal year, ending June 30, 1858, 18,081,435-34 acres have been sold at the various graduated rates. Of these, 10,068,480.25 acres were sold at the lowest price of 12 cents per acre. And of the whole quantity, about 6,457,421 acres, or more than one-third, were sold in the State of Missouri."

The commissioner expresses his belief that the greater portion of the graduated lands have been entered by "unscrupulous individuals," and afterward bought up by speculators regardless of the law requiring settlement and cultivation, and suggests that the act of Congress "be so amended as to require the settlement and cultivation to be made, and proof of the fact produced in every instance before the entry of the land is consummated, the same as required under the

pre-emption act of 1841; else that the condition of settlement and cultivation be waived altogether."

The following statement exhibits the quantity of public land sold at the several land offices in this State during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1858, and the amount received therefor:

Quantity of public land sold in Missouri during the fiscal year ending June 30, 1858, with the amount received for the same.

The lands that were entered under the graduation law, in Missouri, at 12 cents and 25 cents per acre, may be classed under three distinct heads:

* All the land offices north of the Missouri River have been discontinued, and the business of the several former districts is now done at Boonville, Cooper County. St. Louis land district remains unchanged; extending north of the Missouri River as heretofore.

1st. Pine Lands.-These were in a limestone district, timbered with yellow pine, mixed with oak and hickory on the ridges, and ash, walnut, and sugar tree in the valleys, supplied with water by numerous springs and clear running brooks. The agricultural lands of these districts are all in the valleys, and the valleys generally narrow; yet the soil being formed of decomposed limestone and sandstone is very productive.

2d. Limestone Districts.-Wide flat ridges, not very deep valleys, small growth of oak and black-jack timber; partial prairies or openings in places; uplands good for wheat and all small grains. There is timber sufficient for fencing and fuel in these districts, and good water procured by digging wells or cisterns. The soil is well adapted to fruit and grape culture, and the climate pleasant and healthy.

3d. Mineral Lands.-These include lead, iron, and copper lands; are a broken limestone country, plenty of springs and clear creeks; agricultural lands in the valleys; considerable of flint on the sides of the ridges, and very red clay exposed. There is, probably, from fifty to 100 acres of agricultural lands on each half section of this class.

Some idea may be formed of the rapidity with which Missouri is gaining favor, from the following facts, which we gather from the last Report of the General Land Office.

The amount of Public Lands sold in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Michigan, Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon Territory, Washington Territory, Kansas and Nebraska, at $1 25 per acre, was 817,529 35; of which 208,166 78, or more than one-fourth, were in Missouri. The total amount of cash paid into the Treasury by these eighteen States and Territories during the said fiscal year (ending) July 1, 1858,) was $3,213,715 87; of which $837,719 83, or more than one-fourth, was from the sales of Missouri lands. There were entered during the year 2,987,379.11 acres of land under the graduation act; of which 1,682,942-91 were in Missouri, being three hundred and seventy-eight thousand five hundred and six acres more than half the amount entered by all the other States and Territories.

Complaint has been made, by the people of Southeastern Missouri especially, that the surveys were incorrect that a great proportion of land that had been returned as swamp or overflowed land is really dry or arable land. The schedules furnished by State agents have been examined, and as the following table shows that of the 1,031,803.37 acres reported as swamp lands, there are really, upon careful examination, 968,712 95 acres of dry, tillable land.

PUBLIC LANDS.-THE HOMESTEAD LAW.

The "Act to graduate and reduce the price of public lands," as given on page 169, has been repealed; a provision is made, however, that any parties who, under this law, selected a homestead, and were prevented from living upon the land during the war, by being in the service of the army or navy of the United States, and who enter upon the land as their home immediately upon discharge from such service, shall be entitled to its full provisions and benefits.

The privileges of the Homestead Law (passed May 20th, 1862) are extended to every 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 has declared his intention of becoming such, and who has done no disloyal act, direct or indirect. An exception, however, to the foregoing requirement as to age is made in the sixth section of the act, in favor of any person who has served not less than fourteen days in the army or navy of the United States, either regular or volunteer, during actual war, domestic or foreign. Any person coming within the foregoing requirements will have the right to enter one quarter section, or a less quantity, of unappropriated public land, upon which said person may have filed a pre-emption claim, or which, at time of application, is subject to pre-emption at $1.25 per acre; or eighty acres, or less, of such unappropriated lands, at $2.50 per acre.

The law requires the land "to be located in one body, in conformity to the legal subdivisions of the public lands, and after the same shall have been surveyed."

Any person owning and residing on land may enter contiguous land, which, with that already owned and occupied, shall not exceed in the aggregate one hundred and sixty acres.

The applicant for the benefit of the law is required by the second section to file with the Register his "application," which should designate the tract desired to be entered. He must also file his "affidavit," to be taken before the Register or Receiver, setting forth the facts which bring him within the requirements of the law, and adding that the "application is made for his or her exclusive use and benefit, and that the said entry is made for the purpose of actual settlement and cultivation, and not, either directly or indirectly, for the use or benefit of any other person or persons whomsoever."

The applicant will then be allowed to enter the tract applied for, by paying to the Recciver the $10 fee st pulated in the act; and the