184 BOARD OF AGRICULTUEE. [Pub. Doc. 



granted a cart and carriage way to Mary White from her 

 homestead over the railroad to her remaining land adjoin- 

 ing the railroad, and this amounted to a grant of the right 

 of way. This was in 1841. In 1888 the business of the 

 railroad had so grown that the continued use of the way 

 became a source of great danger. Accordingly the road 

 proposed, and the owners of the land then assented to, a 

 new mode of access to the land by the railroad agreeing to 

 purchase and open as a right of way a strip of land leading 

 from a new street to the land, and the abandonment of the 

 old way. The offer was accepted, the new way built, and 

 the old way closed by the railroad company ; but there was 

 no writing as evidence of the acceptance of the new way, 

 or of the abandonment of the old. The owner of the way 

 soon repented of his oral assent to the change, and brought 

 suit against the road for obstructing his original right of 

 way. The road then filed a bill in equity to cancel the old 

 order of the county commissioners and to compel an aban- 

 donment of the old way, and in this was successful ; the 

 court holding that, in permitting the road to construct the 

 new mode of access and in using it, though only for a few 

 times, the owner of the original right of way had really 

 abandoned it. 



The case turned largely upon the intention of the land 

 owner in accepting the new route to his land in place of his 

 original right of way across the tracks. 



Water and Water Rights, Irrigation, etc. 

 The branch of my subject upon which I now enter opens 

 up one of the most interesting and important of all the 

 topics connected with rural law. The steady growth of our 

 population in this State and the excessive demand for water 

 b}'" our numerous cities and large towns, and the consequent 

 diversion of many water courses for this purpose, may well 

 excite the apprehension of the agricultural population of 

 our State. Our Legislature has for many years treated the 

 applications of municipalities for the taking of water for 

 public uses with great liberality, — I am inclined to think 

 with too great liberality. A startling instance of this ten- 

 dency is found in the work which is now going on in the 



