Gilson

is a contest involving the right to acquire This title from the state to the southeast quarter of section 36, in township 15 south, range 2 east, Mount Diablo meridian. The right was awarded to the plaintiff, and from the judgment defendant appeals. The first application to purchase was made by the defendant. On the 21st of October, 1870, he filed his application in the office of the surveyor general of the state. On the 29th of December, 1873, the surveyor general approved it; the applicant made the first payment as required by the statute under which the application was made, and the register of the state land office issued to him a certificate of purchase.

The defendant was not in possession of the land when he applied to purchase it; and, in fact, it was in the actual adverse possession of another, who had settled upon it in the year 1869, inclosed part of it with a substantial in closure, within which he made valuable improvements, and resided until the year 1871, when he sold and conveyed the entire tract to the mother of the plaintiff, who, having entered under her deed, occupied and used the land until 1873, when she died upon the land, leaving the plaintiff, as her only…