136 BOAED OF AGRICULTUEE. 



benefit, and none can have an exclusive enjoyment, no rule can 

 be laid down as to how much each may use without infringing 

 upon the rights of others." Each individual case depends 

 upon the particular circumstances connected with it. The law 

 will interpose to prevent any essential diminution of the water 

 of a water-course which has a well-defined natural channel in 

 which to run ; the particular cases in which a right of action 

 would lie for an infringement of this right, it may not be 

 easy to point out. In any event, where the owner of land 

 through which a natural stream passes, for any purpose what- 

 ever, sees fit to direct the water from its natural channel, he 

 must take care that all the water not consumed by him, or 

 absorbed in the soil on his land, is returned to its natural 

 channel before it leaves the boundaries of his land. 



SUPPORT OF SOIL. 



Another important provision of law which has been much 

 discussed, both in this country and in England, is the "right 

 of support of soil from soil." By very many learned jurists 

 it has been held to be a right which exists as an " easement," 

 or in the nature of an easement, but as all rights acquired in 

 the nature of easements are presumed grants, this right inay 

 more properly be called the result of a "rule of law," and not 

 from grant. 



When it is said "that the owner of the surface is, of com- 

 mon right, entitled to the support," the meaning is that he 

 has the title without proof or presumption of grant. 



Our own courts have said " that few principles of the law 

 can be traced to an earlier or to a more constant recognition, 

 through a long series of uniform and consistent decisions than 

 that if the owner of land makes an excavation in it so near to 

 the adjoining land of another proprietor that the soil of the 

 latter breaks away and falls into the pit, he is responsible for 

 all the damage thereby occasioned." And this, undoubtedly, 

 is the law as recognized at the present time. 



EASEMENTS. 



The right which one proprietor of land may acquire over 

 land of another proprietor, and which is commonly known as 

 a " right of way," is worthy cJf attention, and may be acquired 



