§374. Sale of lands acquired in connection with irrigation project

Whenever in the opinion of the Secretary of the Interior any lands which have been acquired under the provisions of the Act of June seventeenth, nineteen hundred and two (Thirty-second Statutes, page three hundred and eighty-eight), commonly called the “reclamation Act,” or under the provisions of any Act amendatory thereof or supplementary thereto, for any irrigation works contemplated by said reclamation Act are not needed for the purposes for which they were acquired, said Secretary of the Interior may cause said lands, together with the improvements thereon, to be appraised by three disinterested persons, to be appointed by him, and thereafter to sell the same for not less than the appraised value at public auction to the highest bidder, after giving public notice of the time and place of sale by posting upon the land and by publication for not less than thirty days in a newspaper of general circulation in the vicinity of the land.