272 LAND LAWS AXD LAND TITLES.

should be granted eighty acres each; and that all orphan children whose parents had died in coming to or after arriving in Oregon between 1850 and 1853 should receive forty acres of land each. 17

Neither of these petitions was granted 18 at the time, while many others were offered by resolution or otherwise. As the period was expiring when lands would be free, it began to be said that the time should be extended, even indefinitely, and that all lands should be free. 19

There was never, in the history of the world, a better opportunity to test the doctrine of free land, nor anything that came so near realizing it as the set tlement of Oregon. Could the government have re stricted its donations to the actual cultivators of the soil, and the quantity to the reasonable requirements of the individual farmer, the experiment would have been complete. But since the donation was in the nature of a reward to all classes of emigrants alike, this could not be done, and the compensation had to be ample.

Some persons found it a hardship to be restrained from selling their land for a period of four years, and preferred paying the minimum price of $1.25 an acre to waiting for the expiration of the full term. Accordingly, in February 1853, the donation law was so amended that the survey or -general might receive

did not come under the requirements of the donation act; nor those whose parents had died upon the road to Oregon. As they could not inherit, a di rect grant was asked.

17 Or. Statesman, Dec. 16, 1851.

18 Heirs of settlers in Oregon who died prior to Sept. 27, 1850, cannot in herit or hold land by virtue of the residence and cultivation of their ances tors. Ford vs Kennedy, 1 Or. 166. The daughter of Jason Lee was portion less, while the children of later comers inherited.

ia See Or. Statesman, Nov. 6, 1853. A resolution offered in the assembly of 1852-3 asked that the land east of the Cascade mountains should be im mediately surveyed, and sold at the minimum price, in quantities not exceed ing 640 acres to each purchaser; the money to be applied to the construction of that portion of the contemplated Pacific railroad west of the Rocky Moun tains. This was the first practical suggestion of the Oregon legislature con cerning the overland railroad, and appropriated all or nearly all the land in Oregon to the use of Oregon, the western portion except that north of the Columbia being to a great extent claimed.