| 
 | 
 
Forty years substituted for sixty years as the root of title. 
 |   
 
1. In the completion of any contract of sale of land made after the thirty-first day of December one thousand eight hundred and seventy-four, and subject to any stipulation to the contrary in the contract, forty years shall be substituted as the period of commencement of title which a purchaser may require in place of sixty years, the present period of such commencement; nevertheless earlier title than forty years may be required in cases similar to those in which earlier title than sixty years may now be required. 
 |