APPENDIX III 411 



the plaintiff brought an action for damages. The Court held 

 that there was no liability, inasmuch as there was no duty on 

 defendants not to grow a poisonous tree on their property, 

 even though it might be so near the boundary as possibly to be 

 accessible to the plaintiff's cattle. This case differed from the 

 Amersham case cited above, because there the tree extended 

 over the plaintiff's land, and defendants were liable on the prin- 

 ciple laid down in Rylands v. Fletcher (37 L. J., Ex. 161 ; L. R., 

 3, H. L., 330) that the person who, for his own purposes, brings 

 on his land, and collects and keeps there, anything likely to do 

 mischief, is liable if it escapes and does mischief. 



An interesting decision was given in the case of Giles v. 

 Walker (59 L. J., Q.B., 416 ; 24 Q. B. D., 656), where it was held 

 that an occupier of land is under no duty towards his neigh- 

 bour periodically to cut the thistles naturally growing on his 

 land, so as to prevent them from seeding ; and if, dwing to his 

 neglect to cut them, the seeds are blown to his neighbour's land 

 and do damage he is not liable. 



As regards the cleansing of watercourses in England, Section 

 14 of the Land Drainage Act enacts that where, by the neglect 

 of an occupier to cleanse and scour, or to join in cleansing and 

 scouring, the channels of existing drains, streams, or watercourses 

 in or bounding his lands, injury is caused to other land, the 

 occupier of that land may serve a notice requiring the offending 

 occupier to maintain the banks or cleanse and scour the channel, 

 or in default do it himself and recover a proper proportion of 

 the cost. (See also Leaflet No. 1 8 1 , Board of Agriculture and 

 Fisheries.) 



IRELAND 



A Seed-testing Station has already been established by the 

 Irish Department of Agriculture, in order that the danger of 

 using impure seed, and thereby increasing the spread of weeds 

 and correspondingly decreasing the yield of the crop, may as far 

 as possible be obviated. The Station furnishes for each sample 

 a statement of the percentage and nature of the impurity, and 

 the percentage of germination. Farmers are charged 3d. per 

 sample, and seedsmen is., for a report on purity, and 2S. if a 

 germination report be also required. 



In 1909 the Weeds and Agricultural Seeds (Ireland) Act, 



