PEEFACE TO THE FIEST EDITION. 



The present work is an attempt to draw together fur the first time 

 the principal legal decisions which bear upon the everyday incidents of 

 a farmer's life. In writing it, I have endeavoured, as much as possible, 

 to preserve the connection between the cases in each of the branches of 

 the subject, and to shoAV how one governed or modified the other. The 

 facts of the leading ones have been fully sketched out ; and I have also 

 quoted pretty diffusely from the judgments of the Bench. By reference 

 to the Addenda, it will be found that the cases have been brought 

 down to the end of Trinity Term ; and it was for this purpose that 

 the publication of the book was delayed to a very late period of the 

 legal year. 



In order to meet the requirements of general readers, the cum1)ersome 

 case references have been kept out of the text, and confined solely to the 

 conventional table at the beginning of the work. 



The chapter on Agricultural Customs, perhaps, calls for some slight 

 notice. I had originally intended to have based it almost solely on the 

 Parhamentary Report of 1848 ; but on putting myself into communica- 

 tion with the gentlemen who went before the Committee of the House 

 of Commons, they ahnost universally replied, tliat the principle they 

 then advocated had made so great an advance in ten years, that it 

 would be absolutely necessary to recast tlie abstract of their evidence. 

 The customs of Wales, and the other English counties which were not 



