STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 151 



the cost of fences, with the yearly depreciation added, footing up, as it 

 does, five million ninety-four thousand six hundred and seventy-four dol- 

 lars, shows clear]}- that stock growing is chargeable with a loss above its 

 earnino-s of two million one hundred and fiftv-nine thousand seven hundred 

 and fifty-four dollars, which has to be contributed by the produce farmer. 

 Is such an unnatural condition of things consistent with the economies of 

 the great agricultural industries ? Sooner or later its palpable errors will 

 be discovered in the prostration of great interests under the natural law of 

 adjustment and compensation. The figures, as above given, are not set 

 down as definite — they are, however, approximate, and not far out of the 

 way, and sufficiently reliable to be taken as a basis of facts of a startling 

 character. 



THE EQUITIES OP EENCE CUSTOMS. 



It is related that a person in London had trained a raven to watch at 

 the open windows of the dwellings of opulent persons, and when it dis- 

 covered pieces of coin or articles of jewelry, to fly in, seize them, and 

 straightway carry its rich prizes to the domicil of its master. Will it 

 be pretended that it should be obligatory on the owners of these valua- 

 bles to erect such barriers as would prevent the thieving raven from 

 obtaining access to the coveted articles, and that it would be no felony 

 for the party employing the raven to do his nefarious bidding to receive 

 the fruits of these robberies and convert to his own use the proceeds of 

 such burglarious enterprises ? Or, to make a closer application of the 

 principle, has the law given evilly disposed persons license to enter 

 upon the lands or into the houses of whom they may, and take and 

 carry away whatever they choose, simply because the party trespassed 

 upon has not guarded his property with such barricades as would render 

 the trespass a matter of physical impossibilit} r ? The customs of society 

 are quite to the contrary. It is a legal maxim — venerable both because 

 of its age and equity — that it is a felony for one individual to go upon 

 the premises of another individual and seize and carry off his effects 

 without leave or license. Wh}', then, is it that, when the statute pre- 

 scribes pains and penalties against the aggressions of persons upon the 

 property of others, it should reverse its theory and apply a different 

 rule when it is a case of the aggression of property on property? It 

 has been shown that in the case of the pilfering raven its owner and 

 human confederate became amenable to criminal prosecution for the 

 joint offence. Is there any cogent reason why this rule of equity should 

 not be applied to the offending owners of all other kinds of bipeds or 

 animals which may have been pilfering upon the premises of others ? 

 It certainly should be the right of an individual w T ho is in tenancy of a 

 piece of land to enjoy its undisturbed use, particularly when, as an evi- 

 dence of his good faith and honest intentions toward his neighbors, he 

 should give them notice that the} r need apprehend no encroachment 

 on their domain from himself or anything under his control, and with 

 which assurance his neighbor is relieved of the necessity of erecting 

 barricades. Ought not the statute to provide for a mutual pledge 

 between the parties that neither should encroach on the other? Not so 

 is its practice. It compels the party who voluntarily takes a position 

 whereby he can do no wrong to others to erect costly barricades to pro- 

 tect his own industry, on his own premises, from the wanton aggressions 

 of his neighbors. Where is the moral difference between the acts of the 

 owner of the raven and the owner of stock, which, by his act of subject- 

 ing it to starvation on his own ranges, stimulates the animal instinct to 



