“ It was subject to disposal under the placer mining law if valuable for placer mining, and under the homestead law [1] if valuable only for agriculture. Whether it was valuable for the one purpose or the other was a question of fact to be determined by the officers of the Land Department. The claim under the placer mining law was first brought to the attention of those officers and, upon ex parte proofs presented in support of that claim, they found the tract to be valuable for placer mining and permitted it to be included in a placer entry. ”

“ At the trial the evidence bearing upon the character of the tract disclosed, without any contradiction, that it had no value for placer mining, but was strictly agricultural land, and that its only use by the placer claimants had been for farming purposes. ”