Year: 1873

| SuOW Ut bue cuu OI Lu0 CuIIO yCdl CLl1l he has had the trees which he is re- quired to plant under cultivation for two years. This he cannot do unless the trees are planted within one year from the date of entry. Congress thus fixed time for homestead claim ants under the fourth section, and as no time was fixed in the case of par ties making entries under the first sec- tion, I adopted, in entries of that class, the time which Congress con- sidered reasonable and proper to al- low homestead claimants, and limited them to one year. A different con- struction might have been reached by separating the first and second sec- tions of the act from the other por- tions thereof, but, considering the whole act, I did not feel authorized to give to parties making entries under the first section more time than Con- gress granted to homestead settlers by the fourth section. Admitting that the act is ambiguous, and that there is room for a difference of opinion on the point under consideration. can- not conclude that Congress intended to make discrimination against set tiers under the homestead law, who, through poverty, privation and toll, are rendering an essential and valua- ble service to the commonwealth by making their homes upon wild lands and reducing them to cultivation, and thereby adding to the productive area and resources of the country, and in favor of men who have the means to appropriate lands for speculative pur- poses, and who, when they take them under the first section of the act, are not required to reside upon or improve them further than may be necessary to the planting and cultivation of the requisite quantity of timber.

 If any discrimination is to be made I think it should be in favor of the poor man, who seeks home for him. self and family upon the public do- main, who is, by the homestead law, required to build his house and make his actual residence upon his land within six months of the date of his entry, and who has, therefore, about all he can do during the first year of his settlement to provide for the con- fort of his family and comply with the provisions of the homestead law, without being required to plant trees.

 The law will have to be much plainer in its requirements than it is now before 1 can consent to esta blish 8 rule which would be so obviously unjust to the homestead settler, and so clearly in the interest of specula- tion.

 It is also claimed that parties are not limited to one entry, but may make as many as they please. Here again the act is somewhat obscure, but 1t would be so lnanifestly con- trary to the principles embodied in the general legislation in relation to the public domain, as we'll as sound public policy, to allow an individual to appropriate indefinite and unlim- ited quantities of the public land, that I cannot conclude that it was the in tention of Congress to allow any per- son to take more than one quarter section under the provisions of the act, and have therefore decided that an individual cannot make more than one entry, and that such individual cannot take more than one technical quarter-sectlon.

 In arriving at these conclusions I am, I confess, not absolutely certain that the language of the act will not authorize, or at least admit, differ ent construction, but to allow three years for planting trees, and then permit an indefinite and unlimited number of entries by the same person, would be to aid in a speculative mo- nopoly of the public domain by par ties having no intention of complying with the requirements of the law as to tree culture.

 I cannot think that Congress in- tended any such results to flow from the act referred to, and, therefore, l shall adhere to the regulations which l have issued. and limit parties to one year in which to complete their plant ing, and to one entry under the act, until Congress by further legislation authorizes or requires modification of the rule. WILLIS DRUMMoND,

 Commissioner