304 STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



true line ought not to be disturbed on new surveys, and that fifteen years' 

 recognition and acquiescence are ample for this purpose. In view of the 

 great difficulty which often attends the effort to ascertain where the original 

 monuments were planted, the peace of the community requires that all 

 attempts to disturb lines with which the parties concerned have long been 

 satisfied should not be encouraged. Long-established fences are better evi- 

 dence, as a general rule, of actual boundaries settled by practical location than 

 any survey made after the monuments of the original survey have disappeared. 

 Long practical acquiescence in a boundary between the parties concerned may 

 constitute such an agreement as to be conclusive even if it had been erron- 

 eously located. 



Surveyors have no more authority than other men to determine boundaries. 

 All bounds and starting points are questions of fact. Surveyors may or may 

 not have, in certain kinds of cases, means of judgment not possessed by oth- 

 ers; but the law cannot and does not-make them arbiters of private rights; 

 and unless the boundary lines of one's farm have been settled by long acqui- 

 escence by those who are interested, or were interested, it must be settled, like 

 any other disputed question, by the law and the facts. 



It will thus be seen that a man may acquire land by long, honest, and unin- 

 terrupted possession or use, during the time required by law. This is called 

 obtaining title by tn'escription. This term is used to express that operation of 

 the lapse of time by which obligations are extinguished, or titles protected. 



The law raises the just presumption that where he who owns land lias for a 

 long time neglected his rights, without any good reason to prevent liim from 

 asserting them, as when lie has suffered you in good faith to occuj^y a strip of 

 land which really belonged to him, and which you supposed was a part of your 

 farm, he is presumed to have abandoned it, and that you have the title. This 

 is perfectly just, both on account of the parties, and for the purpose of pro- 

 tecting society against the disorders which would arise did a different rule pre- 

 vail. The law secures to the owner of land the rights which he has upon 

 condition that he will at all times assert them, so as not to induce another to 

 fall into an error respecting them. If for a sufficient length of time he neg- 

 lects them, so as to put in peril the rights of another, he will not be allowed to 

 reclaim them. The possessor who has in good faith acquired such possession, 

 has a right superior to the claimant. It will be well to bear in mind, how- 

 ever, that no rights can be acquired by prescri2)tion against the public; so 

 that, if your fence is in the public highway, you may some day be obliged to 

 move it. 



LECTUKE NUMBER NINE. 



In almost every farming community there is one or more individuals who 

 have a passion for trading horses. The more proficienc of these are called 

 " horse jockeys." They are not always to be relied upon in what they say about 

 a horse when they are making a trade. Indeed, I have sometimes thought that 

 if there is any business transaction in wliich a farmer will prevaricate, it is a 

 horse trade. It is this disposition or propensity to trade horses which gives 

 rise to more or less litigation from the country. 



If you are defrauded in a horse trade, you have two legal remedies. You 



