Stock-Raising Homestead Act
Encyclopedia
The Stock-Raising Homestead Act of 1916 provided settlers 640 acres (259 ha) of public land
Public land
In all modern states, some land is held by central or local governments. This is called public land. The system of tenure of public land, and the terminology used, varies between countries...

—a full section
Section (United States land surveying)
In U.S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System , a section is an area nominally one square mile, containing , with 36 sections making up one survey township on a rectangular grid....

 or its equivalent—for ranch
Ranch
A ranch is an area of landscape, including various structures, given primarily to the practice of ranching, the practice of raising grazing livestock such as cattle or sheep for meat or wool. The word most often applies to livestock-raising operations in the western United States and Canada, though...

ing purposes. Unlike the Homestead Act
Homestead Act
A homestead act is one of three United States federal laws that gave an applicant freehold title to an area called a "homestead" – typically 160 acres of undeveloped federal land west of the Mississippi River....

 of 1862 or the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909, land homesteaded under the 1916 act separated surface rights from subsurface rights, resulting in what later became known as split estate
Split estate
In the United States, a Split Estate is when the property rights to the surface and the underground are split between two parties. It is the result of Homestead Acts such as the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act or the Stock-Raising Homestead Act . Who owns the right the exploit the underground...

s. The subsurface rights, also known as mineral rights
Mineral rights
- Mineral estate :Ownership of mineral rights is an estate in real property. Technically it is known as a mineral estate and often referred to as mineral rights...

, are the foundation of recent oil and gas law in the United States
Oil and gas law in the United States
Oil and gas law in the United States is the branch of law that pertains to the acquisition and ownership rights in oil and gas both under the soil before discovery and after its capture, and adjudication regarding those rights.- Overview :...

.

Under the act no cultivation of lands was required, but some range
Rangeland
Rangelands are vast natural landscapes in the form of grasslands, shrublands, woodlands, wetlands, and deserts. Types of rangelands include tallgrass and shortgrass prairies, desert grasslands and shrublands, woodlands, savannas, chaparrals, steppes, and tundras...

 improvements were mandated as necessary.

By 2006, the Stock-Raising Homestead Act and subsequent legislation and other legal changes resulted in the federal government administering the subsurface rights to about 700000000 acres (283,280,200 ha) of land, 58000000 acres (23,471,788 ha) of which have surface rights owned privately or by a U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...

.
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