---
kind: "section"
citation: "43 U.S.C. § 153"
title: "43"
title_heading: "Public Lands"
number: "153"
heading: "Reservation of lands in North Dakota"
release: "119-102"
date: "2026-07-12"
url: "https://uscodex.org/usc/43/153"
units:
  - "Chapter 6 — Withdrawal from Settlement, Location, Sale, or Entry"
---

# §153. Reservation of lands in North Dakota


Upon receipt of a proper deed from the [State](/usc/43/31b.md?p=8) of North Dakota, executed under authority of the act of its legislative assembly, approved February 5, 1915, reconveying to the United States title to [section 16](/usc/43/16.md), township 138 north, range 81 west, fifth principal meridian, the [Secretary](/usc/43/31b.md?p=7) of the Interior is authorized to issue patents to said [State](/usc/43/31b.md?p=8) for such vacant, surveyed, unreserved, unoccupied, nonmineral [public lands](/usc/43/155.md?p=1) as may be selected by said [State](/usc/43/31b.md?p=8) within its boundaries, not exceeding one thousand two hundred and eighty acres in aggregate area, and said section when so reconveyed shall not be subject to settlement, location, entry, or selection under the public land laws, but shall be reserved for the use of the Department of Agriculture in carrying on experiments in dry-land agriculture at the Northern Great Plains Field Station, Mandan, North Dakota.


## Source credit

(July 3, 1916, ch. 219, 39 Stat. 344.)