by John Marshall Harlan

“ If, then, congress did not burden the right to additional lands with the condition that they should be contiguous to those originally entered, it would seem necessarily to follow that the grant of additional lands was without restrictions, and, consequently, there was no purpose to interfere with the disposition by the homesteader of such additional lands, or of his interest in them, in any mode he deemed proper or that might be adopted in respect of other property owned by him. ”

“ Or, rather, as policy requires the peopling of the vacant public lands, and as it could not be expected or desired that the homesteader should abandon his first entry to settle upon the additional land, it would be more for the interest of the government that he should be able to assign his additional right, so that it might come to be held by some one who would settle upon the lands.' 50 Minn. ”

“ Any other construction of section 2306 would, we apprehend, defeat the purpose that congress had in view when it gave additional lands to those who had made entries under the homestead laws of less than 160 acres. We cannot see that any sound policy could have been subserved by restricting the bounty of congress to those who were able to find additional lands contiguous to those previously entered by them ”

“ Robertson in 1887 was invalid, but for the omission ex industria from the statute of the requirement, first introduced by the act of June 8, 1872, that the additional lands entered should be contiguous to those entered under the act of 1862, or under the first section of the act of June 8, 1872. ”