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JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



making a ditch can cut into his neighbour's soil, but usually he cuts it 

 to the very extremity of his own land. He is of course bound to throw 

 the soil which he digs up on to his own land and not on to his 

 neighbour's. Therefore having thrown the soil backwards on to his own 

 land he often chooses to plant a hedge on the top of it. Consequently it 

 is reasonable to suppose that the ditch is included in his land. 



Walls and Fences. 



In the case of walls and fences, if there is no evidence to show to 

 whom they belong the law assumes they belong equally to the owners on 

 each side ; that is to say, these owners are said to hold as tenants in 

 common ; but one owner may lose his rights if he " stands by " and allows 

 the other to exercise acts of ownership, such as coping the edge or building 

 or repairing the wall for a considerable length of time, and in this connec- 

 tion a case was decided which may perhaps prove interesting to those 

 who may build a greenhouse against a dividing wall. In the case in 

 question a tenant who owned a wall in common with the owner on the 

 other side took the coping stones off the wall and heightened it, and built 

 a washhouse against it (presumably the result would have been the same 

 if he had built a greenhouse). The roof of this washhouse occupied the 

 whole width of the top of the wall, and the tenant who built the wash- 

 house also let a stone into the wall with an inscription on it stating that 

 the wall and land on which it stood belonged to him. Upon these facts it 

 was held that the builder of the washhouse had ousted his co-tenant, who 

 had made no protest at the time, and it was declared that the wall 

 belonged to the builder. 



As to the repair of dividing fences, if there is no evidence to show who 

 is responsible, then the only obligation on each is, that he must so maintain 

 the fence as to prevent his beasts from straying on to the land of his 

 neighbour. 



Speaking of fences and ditches reminds one that there is a popular 

 belief in some country districts that the owner of a boundary fence, 

 consisting of a bank with a ditch on the outside of it, is entitled to four 

 feet in width from the base of the bank and four feet in width for the 

 ditch. It is true that there may be some local custom in certain places 

 according to which eight feet in all, to be taken from the owner's own 

 land, are commonly allowed for a bank and a ditch, but there would seem 

 to be no general rule of law to that effect. 



Fixtures. 



I mentioned in the early part of this paper that for present purposes 

 ire must clear our minds of all those special laws relating to nurserymen 

 and market gardeners. In considering garden fixtures we must follow the 

 same rule, because although a nurseryman on one side of the street may 

 have certain special privileges it does not follow that the amateur neigh- 

 bour on the other side has any similar rights. 



First, it may be well to remind ourselves what fixtures really are. A 

 fixture is an article actually attached by some visible means to the soil or 

 to some building on the soil. If it is not so attached it is not a fixture 



