150 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



And, while speaking of fraudulent statements, perhaps I 

 ought to warn you that fraudulent misrepresentations by the 

 seller of a farm, as to how much hay or wood it will cut, how 

 much stock it will keep, how much it had cost, or how much 

 somebody else had offered for it, though made with intention 

 to deceive you into a foolish trade, are not in law sufficient 

 to excuse you from the purchase, or give you any redress, 

 when you find out the deception (2 Allen, 212 ; 5 Allen, 324 ; 

 8 Allen, 334; 102 Mass. 217; 63 Me. 12). Such and other 

 similar statements are considered in law merely as " dealer's 

 talk," which, though not to be commended in the code of 

 morals, the law takes little or no notice of. On the other 

 hand, if he should falsely state that the farm liad cut fifty 

 tons of hay, when he knew it had not, his deception would 

 make him liable ; and the line is so thin between actionable 

 fraud and the contrary, that experiments in that direction 

 are rather dangerous. 



If a boundary-line runs to a tree, rock, stump, or other 

 similar object, it ordinarily goes to the centre of the object ; 

 if it runs by a wall or fence, it passes along the middle of it, 

 and not by the side, which, in a " Virginia fence," might be 

 of some consequence. 



So if the farm bounds by or on a brook, river, stream, &c., 

 it usually extends to the middle of the current ; not always 

 to the middle of the water^ but to the thread of the stream, — 

 ad filum aqu(B. If there be any islands between that centre- 

 line and the bank, they belong to the owner of the main 

 bank. In like manner, if a deed is bounded on a mill-pond, 

 reservoir-pond, or any artificial pond through which a per- 

 ceptible current makes its way, the farmer ordinarily owns to 

 the centre of the current (9 Gray, 269) : on the other hand, 

 if it be a large natural pond or lake, the line stops at the 

 low-water mark on the shore, and does not extend into the 

 pond ; the public having rights in such large bodies of water 

 as are useful for navigation, boating, sailing, and the like 

 (7 Allen, 167). 



As to farms bounding on the seashore some peculiar pro- 

 visions exist in this State. 



That strip of land between high and low water mark, gen- 

 erally termed " the flats," is a frequent subject of contention ; 

 and the question is often made to whom it belongs, — whether 



