22 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



or "lines of obstacle," are lawfully required of those only who 

 may be the owners or occupiers of cattle ; yet in the face of this 

 time-honored law our statutes declare (c. 22, § 2,) "That occu- 

 pants of lands * * * shall maintain partition fences in equal 

 shai^es," irrespective of the use to which either of the "occu- 

 pants" may put that land. Suppose the enclosures adjoining to 

 be a pasture of A's and a field of B's — then by this twist of law B 

 must build one-half or an "equal share" of A's pasture fence. 

 Suppose A's land be a common, then B must build both shares, or 

 the whole, so that the cattle of the neighborhood may go at large 

 upon tliis common. If this is not an anomaly of a finely knit 

 character, tell me what its cunning is ? 



Again, says this astute statute, (c. 23, § 4,) that if there be a 

 defect in B's half of the division fence between himself and A, and 

 the cattle of A's enter his field and destroy his crops in conse- 

 quence of such "defect," no damage can be recovered of A. Eveu 

 if A's cattle break through where no defect is and do damage, as 

 a matter of econom^^ B better pocket the injury than to resort to 

 coercive measures to replace the loss, for the whole course of "an 

 action of trespass " runs counter to swift justice and results in 

 adding insult to injury. This phase of the statutes which requires 

 divisioji fences between grass and grazing lands to be maintained 

 in "equal shares," shipwrecks that whole principle of law which 

 imperils the owner of cattle, unless he fence them in and upon his 

 own land. This muscle of the law's anomaly is more powerful 

 than the law itself. 



The next in course, of the law's deviations, is that which relates 

 to roadside fences. It is supposed to be written in the law that 

 roadside fences are not required. If so written, let the eagle- 

 eyed find it. By the spirit of the fence law road fences are not 

 required ; but by its administration they are an anomaly of law, 

 deeply freighted with vexation. Suppose the divide between the 

 fields of A and B to be an wnfenced highwa}'. The lawful line 

 between lots is the center of such higliway. Either or both have 

 a lawful right to occupy to the road-center line. They may crop 

 or de-pasture up to such line. If either elects to de-pasture and 

 his cattle pass over such unfenced line — that is, cross over the 

 highway into and upon the land of the other, what is the remedy 

 for the party thus trespassed upon ? — for the same law which is 

 supposed to grant the removal of road-fences, itidisputably enacts 

 (c. 23, § 4,) "that if the beasts were lawfully on the adjoining 



