188 The Farmer's Business Handbook 



also owns upward to the heavens and downward 

 to the center of the earth. 



Line fences cause so much dispute and hard 

 feeling that every farmer should inform himself 

 fully respecting the legal complications that are 

 likely to arise from any course of action. Statutes 

 vary so much in different states that no full 

 advice can be given in a book like this. The 

 farmer must remember that the line fence ques- 

 tion is regulated by law and not by what he con- 

 siders to be justice in any given case. The law 

 attempts to reach the average condition, but in 

 doing so it may work injustice to the individual. 

 This result is likely to follow the application of 

 the present New York law. No man, in justice, 

 should be compelled to fence against his neigh- 

 bor's stock any more than he should be com- 

 pelled to house or feed it. Yet the law compels 

 one to do this, since it allows him no redress if 

 he omits to fence and the neighbor's cattle tres- 

 pass on him. If a man grows only fruit, he 

 needs no fence. If he is compelled to fence 

 his land in order to protect it from trespass, 

 he is by that much contributing to his neigh- 

 bor's welfare, with no return to himself. The 

 fruit-grower does not need or want property in 

 fences, yet his neighbor can compel him to in- 

 vest in such property. This may seem to violate a 

 fundamental principle of common law that every 



