THE LAW OF TRESPASS, AND HOW IT 

 AFFECTS THE FARMER. 



Extract prom a paper by Burton W. Potter, attorney-at-i.aw . 

 Worcester, read the past winter before the Chamberlain Dis- 

 trict Farmers' Club of Worcester, taken from the "Massachu- 

 setts Spy." 



According to the theory of the common law, the owner in fee 

 of a piece of land has absolute dominion over it, not only on its 

 surface, but from the highest heavens above it to the centre of 

 the earth beneath it, but practically every owner of land soon finds 

 out that he holds it as a trust for the society at large. He is not 

 permitted to create or allow anything like a private or a public 

 nuisance on his land, but he is liable to have it taken for quaran- 

 tine grounds and the dwelling thereon for a pest house. He is 

 liable to have it flowed against his consent for mill or factory 

 1 imposes. It may be taken from him for a park or a cemetery, 

 for a highway or a railroad, for a reservoir or a sewage farm, for 

 a post-office or a school-house, or for some other public use. He 

 is also liable to have his premises run over and damaged by 

 hunters, fishermen, pedestrians and fruit and crop marauders. 



As the law now stands every person who enters upon the land 

 of another without his express or implied consent commits a civil 

 trespass, whether the laud be enclosed or not, and although no 

 material injury be done, for which damages may be recovered in 

 a civil action ; and if a person, without a farmer's permission, 

 wilfully cuts down, carries away, girdles or otherwise destroys 

 any of his trees, timber, wood or underwood, the farmer can re- 

 cover of him in a civil suit three times the amount of the dam- 

 ages he has done. But fortunately the farmer is not compelled to 

 rely wholly upon the civil law for redress, for frequently the tres- 

 passer upon his land and crops is impecunious and wholly unable 

 to pay his grocery bills, and would cut a sorry figure in trying to 

 satisfy an execution for three times the amount of his depredations 

 upon somebody's land. Although it cannot be said with truth 



