No. 4.] KURAL LAW. 161 



SOME ASPECTS OF THE LAW AS APPLIED TO RURAL 



AFFAIRS. 



BY M. F. DICKINSON, JR., BOSTON. 



About five and twenty years ago, during the administra- 

 tion of President William S. Clarlv of the Agricultural Col- 

 lege, I used to spend a portion of one of the spring months 

 in delivering a course of lectures to the senior class in that 

 institution upon " Law as applied to rural afiairs." The 

 service was a very pleasant one. The young gentlemen 

 entered into the study of the subject with commendable 

 zeal, and I believe reaped some advantage from the course. 

 It is possible that this fact may have been known to the 

 secretary of the Board when he asked me to speak on this 

 occasion. 



At the December meeting of this Board, in 1878, Judge 

 Edmund H. Bennett of Taunton, the dean of Boston Uni- 

 versity Law School, delivered an address before this body. 

 He took for his subject "Farm law," — the same topic 

 which is announced for me upon this programme. I cannot 

 expect to rival the high authority and classic style which 

 characterized Judge Bennett's address, and its reproduction, 

 in an expanded form, which appeared in print at a later day, 

 but I may be able to supplement what he so well said. I 

 should like to designate my subject as " Some aspects of 

 the law as applied to rural affairs." 



There is no inappropriateness in asking an American 

 lawyer to address a body of American agriculturists. Our 

 country is pre-eminently the home of l^oth the lawyer and 

 the farmer. In no other nation of the world have these 

 two classes been so closely related in shaping the national 

 growth and welfare. It cannot be denied that the American 

 farmer has always furnished to the American lawyer his full 



