LAW FOR THE FARMER. 315 



of trespass quare clausum fregil. So my advice, honestly, fairly 

 and squarely given, is " don't resort to impounding for redress in 

 any case against a known owner, but resort to your action of 

 trespass which is decisive and certain." I see one or two minis- 

 ters of the Gospel before me, and perhaps I would modify that so 

 far as to say, that I would tender the olive branch first. 



I have a suggestion to make outside of the legal view of this 

 matter, and those of you who have seen my little lot of 30 acres 

 know that I mean what I say. Your statutes require that a fence 

 shall be four feet high, and of such a character that the fence 

 viewers shall regard it as a fence. Let us see. If you want to 

 build a stake and rail fence, you must have, for every length of 

 fence, two stakes, a cap, a bunk, and foiir rails of ordinary size, to 

 satisfy the fence viewers. You build in that way, in many 

 instances, a rather questionable fence. How much will it cost to 

 make it five rails high instead of four? You will need no more 

 stakes, no more caps, no more bunks, and only one more rail, the 

 cost of which is a mere trifle, and then, if your fence is otherwise 

 properly built, you will have a fence about which no question can 

 arise. One rail more on your division fences, and your highway 

 fence dropped out of the way, would eventually save an immense 

 amount, protect your highways from snow drifts, make better 

 neighbors, and a richer State. 



Highways — The Law of the Road. 



It scarcely becomes me to say anything upon the necessity of 

 highways, the manner of building them, or the advantages to be de- 

 rived from thoroughly constructed roads throughovit the country, 

 after the elaborate and exhaustive argument of the gentleman Avho 

 spoke upon this subject yesterday. I will only speak of some special 

 legal matters which were not appropriate to, or which he did not 

 see fit to weave into, his very able discourse on this matter. In 

 the first place I will say that in locating a road, whether it be a 

 common town road, or a county road or public highway, as it is 

 sometimes termed, the public do not acquire the absolute fee in 

 the soil, any more than do the public become the owner of the 

 absolute fee in the bed of this river. All non-navigable streams 

 are thus situated, that each riparian proprietor owns the soil to 

 the middle line of the water — ad fihun medium aquce. The public 

 have the easement, the right to attach a servitude to the water 

 which runs over the bed of the stream. Precisely analogous to 



