202 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



Mr. Dickinson. That subject I omitted. Of course it is 

 one of the most important subjects to the farmer. The rule 

 is that twenty years are required to give a right of way or a 

 right to draw water. That is a prescriptive right. But a 

 man cannot acquire a prescriptive right simply by using it. 

 He must use that right of way continually and without inter- 

 ruption, adversely to the owner. He must go ahead in the 

 face of the owner, and use the right of way. The use must 

 be continuous, and against persons who are competent to ob- 

 ject, — that is, they must be competent to make a contract. 

 If you began to use a right of way and used it eight years, 

 and the owner of the land died, leaving an infant son as the 

 sole heir, no prescription would run during that period. It 

 must be adverse to the owner, and must be done openly and 

 not in secret. 



Mr. Sessions. I want to explain a little the case the 

 speaker spoke of, about the l)arl)cd-wire fence on sidewalks. 

 The petition upon which the committee of the Legislature 

 acted and reported was to forl)id the erection of barbed- wire 

 fences along any sidewalk in the State. Knowing, then, as 

 has already come to pass, that it would become a necessity 

 to use the wire, I objected that such a law would be out of 

 character. But the friends of the matter who were so much 

 interested in the barbed-wire fence along sidewalks in vil- 

 lages made a great deal of cry about it. So we finally com- 

 promised by forbidding the putting up of barbed wire along 

 a sidewalk unless six feet from the ground. This was to pre- 

 vent climbing by boys and dogs, and yet the trouble which 

 the people complained of was remedied. If this matter of 

 cutting trees could be arranged in some such way to exclude 

 the entire rural district from the provision of the law, it 

 would seem to cover the ground. 



J. E. McClellan (of Grafton). I have listened to this 

 discussion about the law of 1899. There are more members 

 of the agricultural committee of 1899 in this hall than have 

 been mentioned. I see at least four or five before me. I 

 want to set us right. This bill did not come from the com- 

 mittee on agriculture. We had nothing to do with drafting 

 the bill. It came from the Forestry Association, and would 

 not hold water in one of its clauses as it came from them. 



