Roads Not Public Property 
A QUESTION frequently asked is: Who owns the 
trees, the shrubs and plants that grow along the 
public roads? Not only priVjite individuals but offi- 
cials are confused by the question. Recently a resident of 
New York State ordered certain travelers to stop picking 
apples from a tree that grows in front of his property. 
The\^laiighed at him and said that he had no more right 
to them than they had as the fruit was growing in the 
public road. To maintain his position he submitted the 
question to The Rural Nciv Yorker. The reply was that 
the owner is right and the travelers wrong. 
The question was submitted to Cummings & Lockwood 
of Stamford, Conn., as to the situation in that State. 
Their report covers the whole ground and is here printed. 
"It appears that tree wardens are somewhat limited 
in their power. They do not own the trees along the 
public road as their actions not rarely suggest. The 
trees belong to the owner of the adjoining property. 
It appears from this opinion that the owner of the ad- 
joining property owns not only the fruit but the flowers, 
raspberries, huckleberries, strawberries and the grass 
that grows along the public road. Children especially 
sometimes think that they must ask permission to pick 
daisies from the field, but that they are at liberty to 
gather them up from the sidewalk and the roadside. 
The owner of the adjoining pro])erty controls the flowers 
in the roads as completely as he controls those in the 
fields. It seems to be a general belief that pedestrians 
may break down shrubs and flowers and pick berries in 
the public- road without saying even, "if you please." 
The public has no such right. They have only the right 
to travel over the road. 
It would be a pleasing consummation if the restrictions 
described were respected not only by private individuals 
but by some public officials. A tree warden acting in 
behalf of the public should keep clearly in mind when 
he is trimming the trees that he is dealing with private 
property. The right of pasturage along public roads be- 
longs only to the owners of the adjoining property. No 
one has any more right to pasture his cattle along a 
public road in front of private property than he has to 
feed the horse or the cow in the middle of the owner's 
farm without saying even as much as, 'Tf you please." 
The opinion stated by the legal firm above mentioned 
is, in part, as follows : 
"We have received your request for an opinion regard- 
ing the law of Connecticut as to ownership of land 
traversed by highways, and rights in trees and herbage 
growing thereon. We are glad to comjily with your re- 
quest, but it is proper in doing so to add a warning to 
your readers that a legal opinion rendered upon any 
subject without references to a particular state of facts, 
should not be relied on as controlling those facts. This 
opinion is intended merely to give a very general and non- 
technical view of the law, as a matter of abstract interest 
to your readers. 
"It is safe generally to assume that each proprietor 
whose land abuts on a highway owns the fee of the land 
to the center of the highway. The reason for this rule 
of law is that the town or State by which the highway 
is opened, does not acquire any actual ownership (viz.: 
the fee) of the land, but only a right to travel over it, 
which right is held in trust for the public at large. When 
the highway is opened, therefore, the fee of the land 
remains in the original proprietors : and because most 
highways are so ancient that it would not be possible or 
convenient to ascertain who actually owned the fee of 
the land taken for highway purposes, the law supplies 
a strong presumption that the proprietors on either side 
own to the center of the highway. That is the normal 
situation, and strong proof is necessary to controvert the 
claim of any proprietor to his fee to the center of the 
highway. Of course if a single proprietor originally 
owned all the land through which the highway passes, 
he remains the owner of the fee of the entire highway 
after it is opened. 
"Your readers will jierhaps be most interested in the 
rights which the abutting proprietors and the public, re- 
spectively, have in the trees and herbage growing on 
land within the limits of a highway. The above discus- 
sion is necessary to a proper understanding of these 
rights, wdiich we now take up. We assume, in what fol- 
lows, that the normal situation prevails, viz. : an open 
traveled highway over which the public has a mere ease- 
ment or right of way, and of which each abutting pro- 
prietor owns the fee of the land to its center line. 
"In law, everything that grows upon land, or is so 
attached or annexed to it as to be practically inseparable 
from it, is part of the real estate itself. Thus, title to a 
tree, a shrub, or to a house, follows title to the land, for 
each of these is in law a part of the land. Since the 
abutting ])roprietor owns the land to the center of the 
highway it follows that he also owns the trees, shrubs 
and other natural products found thereon, and such is 
the law of Connecticut. It may be laid down broadly, 
that the abutting proprietor, as between himself and any 
other private person, owns the trees and other growths 
on his portion of the highway, absolutely. Any other 
person not clothed with public authority or not in the 
act of removing an obstacle to his proper use of the 
highway for travel, has no color of right to injure any 
such growth or to take its fruit. A violation of the 
proprietor's rights as above outlined is a trespass just as 
much as it would be to commit a similar depredation on 
the owner's premises a hundred feet back from the high- 
way, and the unauthorized taking of anv of the owner's 
property in either case is a theft. 
"It does not follow, however, that the proprietor of 
the highway land can enjoy the untrammeled use of 
these trees and other growths. He is curtailed in his 
enjoyment of them just as his control over his half of 
the highway itself is limited, by the reasonable require- 
ments of the public use. Thus a tree or any other object 
which obstructs travel, may be trimmed or removed, as 
public convenience demands ; for the public easement 
within its limited scope is paramount. 
"In Connecticut, by statute, the public has acquired 
additional rights in wayside growths, wholly apart from 
the primary common law rights as to highway travel. 
These public rights are exercised chiefly by Town Tree 
Wardens. Their jurisdiction extends over all public trees 
within their towns. Since all the territory in Connecticut 
is within the borders of some town, all public trees in 
the State fall under the jurisdiction of the respective 
Tree Wardens, Public trees are defined by the statute as 
"all transplanted trees, and all other trees not less than 
six inches in circumference measured two feet from the 
ground, within the limits of any public way." Tree 
Wardens may, with the consent of the selectmen of the 
town, trim or remove any such tree when they deem 
public welfare or safety demand it ; and any person 
may make application, as representing the public, for 
such trimming, cutting or removal to the Tree Warden, 
and in that case the Warden will hold a public hearing, 
after giving due notice thereof, on such application, and 
anyone aggrieved by the Tree Warden's decision may 
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