UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

The law of Mexico, passed in 1824, directs that it shall not be permitted to unite in one hand, as property, more than one league of irrigable land, four leagues of farming land, and six for stock raising.

Therefore where a person had obtained a grant of five leagues in Lower California and another grant of eleven leagues in Upper California, and the departmental assembly held the law to be that the governor could not unite in the same hand more than eleven leagues, although it might be in different tracts, the grant in Upper California must be restricted to six leagues.

It was necessary to its being definitively voted that the grant of the governor should have the concurrence of the departmental assembly, and as they reduced it, taking off five leagues, this was the state of the title, as respected quantity, when the treaty with Mexico was made.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the Court. clubjuris

Page 63 U. S. 288