Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1913-10-11
RULING BY Department
Change Made in Amount Cultivation Under
Three-Year Homestead Law-En-
tryman Must Give Notice.

from the homesteader. The ruling ls
as follows:
To the Commissioner of the General
Land Office:
1t is found, in the administration OF
| the three-year homestead law, Act o1
June 6, 1912 (S7 Stat, 123), that the
regulations issued February 13, 1918
Circular No. 2OS al L. D., 1917, govern.
ing the reduction of cultivation should
be more specific. Section of the said
regulations is therefore amended to
read as follows:
| The Secretary of the Interior is
authorized, upon satisfactory showing
thereof, to reduce the required area OF
cultivation. The homestead laws were
enacted primarily for the purpose Of
enabling citizens of the United States
''in good faith to obtain home" and
the provision of the statute in regard to
reduction in the required area of culti-
walton will not be permitted to operate
as in any manner to relax the rule that
the entryman must so reside upon, use.
occupy, cultivate and improve the tract
of land entered by him as to satisfacto
rily show that he in good faith at the
time of such entry intended to make
the land his bonafde home and that it
has been his home to date of final proof.
However if the tract of land entered is
so billy or rough, the soil so alkaline,
compact, sandy, or swampy, the pre-
cipitation of moisture 80 light as not
to make cultivation practicable, to the
extent of the required amount or if the
land is generally valuable only for
grazing, a reduction in the area of
cultivation may be permitted. The
personal or financial disabilities or
misfortunes of the entryman existing at
the time of entry will not be considered
sufficient cause for reduction in the area
Of cultivation, but if after entry and
actual settlement, through circumstances
which at the time of entry could not
reasonably have been foreseen, the
entryman has met with misfortune
which renders him reasonably unable
to cultivate the prescribed area, upon
satisfactory proof thereof at the time of
making final proof, reduction in area
of cultivation may be permitted during
the period of disability following such
misfortune, provided notice of such
misfortune and the nature thereof
shall be submitted under oath within
sixty days after the occurrence thereof
to the Register of the land office of the
district in which the land is situated.
Tilling of the land or other appropriate
treatment for the purpose of conserving
the moisture with a view of making a
profitable crop the succeeding year will
be deemed cultivation within the terms
of the act, where that manner of cul-
tivation is necessary or generally follow
ed in the locality.
No reduction in area of cultivation
will be permitted on account of expense
in removing the standing timber from
the land. If lands are so heavily tim
bered that the entryman cannot reason
ably clear and cultivate the area
prescribed by the statute, such entries
will be considered speculative and not
made in good faith for the purpose of
obtaining home.
The authority to make reduction in
the prescribed area of fcultivation relates
| to enlarged homestead entries as we'll
as ordinary homesteads made under Sec
| ton 2289 L. s., and applications for
reduction of area of cultivation under
enlarged homestead entries will be
made or refused in accordance with the
provisions of this paragraph.
Procedure to Obtain Reduction in Area
of Cultivation.
A showing should be made in each
| case as to the difficulties attendant upon
the cultivation of that particular tract
To this end the entryman should show,
in detail, the special physical condi-
tions of the land which he believes
entities him to an order of reduction;
describing its topography, whether
hilly or level, it's quality and character
as adapted to cultivation, whether light or
heavy, sandy, loamy, rocky or alkaline,
together with the prevalent climatic
conditions in the matter of annual
SHOWS or rains, as affording sufficient
moisture for the production of crops
one year with another. The presence
or absence of springs or permanent
streams on or in the immediate vicinity
of the land should be shown. The
natural products of the land without
tillage, and the effect of tillage on the
soil, should be shown, as we'll as the
use to which the land is best adapted.
1t is desirable that the entryman should,
wherever practicable, know in advance
what, if any reduction can properly be
made, and, therefore, as general
regulation governing applications for
reduction in area of cultivation, it is
directed that all entrymen who desire a
reduction shall file applications there
for during the first year of the entry
and upon forms to be prepared and
furnished by the Commissioner of the
General Land Office and distributed
through the land Office, which will be
forewarded, without action, to the
Chief of the Field Division, and report,
made in accordance with circular 1876
on form 4-0O7.b.
Application for reduction in area of
cultivation will be acted upon by the
Commissioner of the General Land
Office, who may in appropriate cases
defer action until final proof, but his
decision in granting or refusing appli-
cations for reduction in area shall be
subject to review, upon appeal, by the
Secretary of the Interior.
| Andrieus A. Jones,