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728 and necessities of actual settlers, and I again respectfully renew my recommendation for a complete consolidation of all statutes respecting settlement rights into a general homestead law. A bill for that purpose met with favorable action from both Houses of the last Congress, but owing to a slight amendment, as to the time when it should take effect, by the House, on the last day of the session, in which the Senate had not time to concur, it failed to become a law.

Since my last annual report Congress has passed the following act, confirming entries made under the not of August 4, 1854, graduating the price of public lands:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representanives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all entries of public lands under the act to graduate and reduce the price of the public lands subject to entry to actual settlers and cultivators approved the fourth day of August, eighteen hundred and fifty-four, made prior to the passage of this act, in which the purchaser has made the affidavit and paid or tendered the purchase-money as required by said act, and the instructions issued and in force and in the hands of the register at the time of making said entry, are hereby legalized, and patents shall issue to the parties, respectively, provided that in case of tender the money shall be paid, excepting those entries under said act which the Commissioner of the General Land Office may ascertain to have been fraudulently or evasively made: Provided, That this act shall not be so construed as to confirm any of said entries which have heretofore been annulled and vacated by said Commissioner on account of fraud, evasion of law, or other special cause: And provided further, That nothing herein contained shall be so construed as to deprive any actual settler and cultivator of his right to any land on which he resided at the time of on entry by another person under the act to which this is an amendment.

Approved February 17. 1873.

Under this confirmatory act a large number of entries previously suspended, because of the failure of parties to make the required proof of settlement and cultivation, have been relieved from suspension, and patents are being delivered upon application in proper form.

The act of Congress of February 24, 1871, provided for the disposition of the lands embraced in certain military reservations abandoned by the War Department, viz: Fort Lane, Oreg., estimated area 640 acres; Fort Walla-NVa11a, Wash., 1,920 acres; Fort Jesup, La., 6,400 acres; Fort Sabine, La., 18,200 acres; Fort Smith, Ark., 306 acres; Fort Wayne, Ark., 11,680 acres; Fort Zarah, Kaus., 3,068 acres; Fort Abercrombie, Minn., 6,993 acres; Camp McGarry, Nev., 75 square miles; Fort Sumner, N. Mex., 21§- square miles; and so much of Fort Bridger, Wyo., as might be no longer required for military purposes.

At the date of my last annual report, proceedings under said act were suspended for want of an appropriation to meet the necessary expenses. The necessary appropriation having been made by act of Congress approved March 3, 1873, proper measures have been taken to bring the lands embraced in said reservations into market, with the exception of Fort Walla-Walla, Wash., which has again passed under the jurisdiction of the War Department, it having been found necessary to resume the use of it as a military post.

During the last fiscal year public offerings of valuable timber lands in the State of Minnesota were made, pursuant to proclamation of the