Jones

(after stating the facts as above). The entries described in the complaint were made under an act of Congress (28 St. 286, 326) and the amendments thereto (31 St. 179, 740) requiring, among other things, that three years’ actual residence on the land “shall be established by such evidence as is now required in homestead proofs as a prerequisite to title or patent.” But the land department of the United States, acting under what is now conceded to have been a mistake of law, permitted eight of the entrymen to make proof of residences of from one to one and one-half years, respectively, and to deduct times of their respective military services from the required three-year period of residence. This error arose by applying to' the entries upon lands within the Siletz reservation the provisions of sections 2304 and 2305, Revised Statutes (Comp. St. 1916, ,§§ 4592, 4593), and the act of January 26, 1901, c. 180 (31 St. 740), which relate to commutation of homestead entries made by honorably discharged Union soldiers.

Inasmuch, then, as the requirements of the statute under which the proofs were taken and the patents issued could only have been properly met by proof of three years’…