302 
LAW OF OVERHANGING TREES. 
liar trait by the long line of breeding. Constant¬ 
ly led to the pastures by shepherds, they have 
not been allowed to roam far over the fields for 
hundreds of years past. The ewe lamb you 
saw was got by the Rambouillet buck, out of 
Guerin’s flock ; and when in France, he was the 
most noble-looking animal of the species I ever 
saw; but the 60 days’ journey which he and 
the flock have made, has reduced him and them 
so as hardly to make a respectable shadow. 
These ewes, some of them, weighed 200 pounds, 
in France, and the smallest sheep of the 140 
ewes weighed 130 pounds. S. W. Jewett. 
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LAW OF OVERHANGING TREES. 
Few questions are of more importance to 
those having farms and gardens, than that 
raised in the case of Martin vs. Boyes and anoth¬ 
er, tried the other day before Mr. Baron Platt, 
and reported in the daily papers of last week. 
We mean the question, “ In what cases is a per¬ 
son whose trees project beyond the boundaries 
of his own property liable to have them lopped, 
and by whom V* 
In the case referred to, it appears, from the 
opening of the learned counsel, that the plain¬ 
tiff had a house in the principal street of Bev¬ 
erly, with seven acres of ground attached to it. 
In front of the house, facing the street, were 
some very fine elm and chestnut trees, which 
overhung the wall bounding the plaintiff’s 
grounds, and extended over the street, forming 
a great ornament to the town, shading and pro¬ 
tecting the house, and acting as a shade and 
shelter to the inhabitants during sunshine and 
rain. One of these trees intercepted the view 
of the King’s Arms sign on an adjoining tav¬ 
ern, the landlady of which complained that her 
sign could not be perfectly seen.on the market 
days, and sent a notice to the plaintiff to lop 
these branches. The plaintiff appeared not to 
have paid attention to this notice, and the land¬ 
lady made her complaint to some of her friends 
in the town council, of which two of the de¬ 
fendants were members, Mr. Boyes and Mr. 
Crump. The town council decided that the 
branches of the trees overhanging the street 
must be lopped. Accordingly, the town clerk 
sent the plaintiff a notice to this effect, and some 
correspondence ensued, which resulted in the 
plaintiff, by his attorney, threatening to bring 
an action against any one who damaged his 
trees. Before the terms of this notice had ex¬ 
pired, on the 26th of February, early in the 
morning, a number of men, under the direction 
of one Wood, a market gardener, who it ap¬ 
peared acted under the direction of the two de¬ 
fendants already named, came to the grounds 
of the plaintiff, and severed the large branches 
of fifteen trees which overhung the wall. Thirty 
large branches were severed from two to thirty 
inches within the wall. This was the act of 
which the plaintiff complained. The defence 
set up was, that the road belonged to the cor¬ 
poration ; that the trees were a nuisance, both 
public and private; and that the corporation 
have a right to lop them. The jury, however, 
returned a verdict for the plaintiff, with $1,500 
damages. 
Now it is, we apprehend, perfectly clear, on 
the one hand, that there are cases in which 
trees projecting beyond the boundaries of their 
owner’s property may be lopped with impunity; 
and that, on the other hand, if a person not 
legally entitled so to do, interferes with another’s 
property in the above summary manner, he 
will deservedly be compelled to pay a large 
sum of money by way of damages, and per¬ 
haps be held to come within the malicious inju¬ 
ries to property act, which would entail still 
more serious consequences. It is, then, of great 
importance that the public should know under 
what circumstances trees may or may not be 
loped by persons other than their owner. 
Trees which project beyond the boundaries 
of their owner’s property are considered as a 
nuisance: if they project over a public high¬ 
way, so as to interfere with the free traffic 
thereon, they are a public nuisance; if they 
project over the land of a private person, his 
rights of property are interfered with, and the 
trees are a private nuisance. In the first case, 
where the trees interfere with the free traffic on 
a public highway, they may, it would appear, 
be lopped by any one who has been thereby 
prevented from enjoying a free use of the way, 
but no other injury he may sustain will justify 
him in taking such a course. To quote the 
words of the present Chief Justice of the court 
of the Queen’s Bench: “ It is fully established 
that if there be a nuisance in a public highway, a 
private individual cannot of his own authority 
abate it, unless it does him a special injury, 
and he can only interfere with it so far as is 
necessary to exercise his right of passing along 
the highway; and without considering whether 
he must show that the abatement of the nuisance 
was absolutely necessary to enable him to pass, 
we clearly think that he cannot justify doing 
any damage to the property of the person who 
has improperly placed the nuisance in the 
highway, if, avoiding it, he might have passed 
