I suppose, when they take the requisite oaths.  In this way many valuable claims are taken up and held along from month to month, or from year to year, by mock improvements.  A pretender will make just improvements enough to hinder the actual settler from locating on the claim, or will sell out to him at a good profit.  A good deal of money is made by these fictitious claimants.  It is rather hard to prevent it, too, inasmuch as it is difficult to disprove that a man intends some time to have a permanent home, or, in fact, that his claim is not his legal residence, though his usual abiding place is somewhere else.  Nothing could be more delightful than for a party of young men who desire to farm to come out together early in the spring, and aid each other in preempting land in the same neighborhood.  The preemptor has to pay about five dollars in the way of fees before he gets through the entire process of securing a title.  It is a popular error (much like the opinion that a man cannot swear to what he sees through glass) that improvements of a certain value, say fifty dollars, are required to be made, or that a certain number of acres must be cultivated.  All that is required, however, is evidence that the party has built a house fit to live in, and has in good faith proceeded to cultivate the soil.  The law does not permit a person to preempt 160 acres but once; yet this provision is often disregarded, possibly from ignorance, I was about to say, but that cannot be, since the applicant must make oath that he has not before availed himself of the right of preemption.

I will insert at this place an abridgment of the preemption act of 4th September, 1841, which I made two years ago; and which was extensively published in the new states and territories.  I am happy to find, also, that it has been thought worth copying into one or more works on the West.

I. Lands subject to preemption.  By sec. 10 of said act it is provided that the public lands to which the Indian title had been extinguished at the time of the settlement, and which had also been surveyed prior thereto, shall be subject to preemption, and purchase at the rate of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre.  And by the act of 22d July, 1854, sec. 12, the preemption of unsurveyed lands is recognised as legal.  Lands of the following description are excepted:  such as are included in any reservation, by any treaty, law, or proclamation of the President of the United States, or reserved for salines or for other purposes; lands included within the limits of any incorporated town, or which have been selected as the site for a city or town; lands actually settled and occupied for the purposes of trade and not agriculture; and lands on which are situated any known salines or mines.

II.  The amount designated is any number of acres not exceeding one hundred and sixty.