We did not change our land laws for his sake, and for a time he needed no sympathy.

The homestead law in combination with the preemption act and the tree claim act would enable a family to get hold of a very sizable tract of land.

The foundations of many comfortable fortunes were laid in precisely this way by thrifty men who were willing to work and willing to wait.
It was not until 1917 that the old homestead law limiting the settler to a hundred and sixty acres of land was modified for the benefit of the stock-raiser.

The stockraising homestead law, as it is called, permits a man to make entry for not more than six hundred and forty acres of unappropriated land which shall have been designated by the Secretary of the Interior as "stockraising land." Cultivation of the land is not required, but the holder is required to make "permanent improvements" to the value of a dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, and at least one-half of these improvements must be made within three years after the date of entry.

In the old times the question of proof in "proving up" was very leniently considered.