Stephen Johnson Field

“ Nearly all the land within the distance usually prescribed as a limit had already been disposed of to another railroad company, or, from the general settlement of the country, was likely to be appropriated before the line of the road could be definitely located. In order, therefore, that its proposed aid might not be defeated, Congress allowed the land granted to be taken on the line of the road wherever it could be found, without regard to the distance from its line to which the grantee might be compelled to go to satisfy its grant, by reason of previous appropriations. ”

“ The company was not at liberty to pass beyond land open to its appropriation, and take lands farther removed from its road. In all grants which are to be satisfied out of sections along a line of a road, it is necessarily implied, in the absence of specific designation otherwise, that the land is to be taken from the nearest undisposed sections of the character mentioned. Such grants give no license to the grantees to roam over the whole public domain lying on either side of the road, in search of land desired. ”

“ The grant was one in proesenti, and when the sections granted were ascertained, the title to the land took effect by relation as of its date, except as to the reservations named. The land to which the complainant asserts a homestead claim is embraced in one of the sections within the twenty-mile limit ”