DECISIONS BELATING TO THE PUBLIC LANDS. FINAL PROOF-SUPPLEMENTAL EVIDENCE. GEORGE C. TAYLOR. It is the duty of the General Land Office to require supplemental proof, where the testimony, as submitted, is evasive and incomplete. First Assistant Secretary Chandler to the Commissioner of the General Land Office, January 7, 1890. I have considered the case of Geo. C. Taylor on his appeal from your office decision of November 20, 1888, rejecting his final proof for his pre-emption cash entry for W. NE. † and E. † NW. Sec. 22 T. 119 N., R. 55 W., Watertown, Dakota. Proof was rejected for the reason "that the improvements and culti vation shown are not conclusive of good faith," but claimant was allowed sixty days in which to furnish "new proof without publication, satisfactorily showing full compliance with law in good faith." Claimant made no attempt to comply with. said order but appealed instead to this Department. The ground of his appeal is substantially that his final proof is sufficient. The answers on final proof are as brief as it was possible to make them. In reply to the question "What improvements have you made on the land since settlement, and what is the value of the same?" claimant answered-"House eight by ten, five acres under cultivation." He does not say what kind of a house, nor does he give any value. The house might be a very poor dug-out, a very temporary sod house, or a frame shanty of the most flimsy description for all that the proof shows to the contrary, and your office might well consider his failure to fully describe the house or to fix a value on the improvements as an evasion which required explanation. Again he answered that he had used the land for agricultural purposes and yet in reply to the question "How much of the land, if any, 14639-VOL 10—1 1 |