98 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
ment,—the people of Massachusetts, and some other 
portions of New-England, have furnished the proof. We 
have travelled days together in that highly cultivated 
state, without ever seeing any kind of animal at large. 
In Brookline, which has no equal in America for the con- 
tinued succession for miles, of its cultivated landscape 
beauty, one may see gates open from the street into the 
most finished and costly grounds, without the least fear 
of injury from without, and indeed some of the newer 
residences have no gates at all. 
We have been gratified with the late decision of the 
Supreme Court of Michigan* on this subject—not as 
containing any new principle of law, but as opening the 
subject to public attention. Horses, running at large, 
were killed by a passing train of cars, and in an action 
against the company, the owner failed to recover dama¬ 
ges. The court, after alluding to the township regula¬ 
tion of making horses free commoners, remarks: 
“ The idea that because horses and cattle are free 
commoners , that therefore they have the lawful right of 
trespassing on private property is absurd—preposterous 
in the extreme. What ar e free commoners? Where 
may they run? In Holliday vs. Marsh (3 Wend. R. 147) 
the Supreme Court says, * Suppose a case where a town 
has no common land, and they pass a by-law permitting 
cattle and horses to run at large, where are they to run? 
Surely not on individual property. Where then? In 
the highway? The public has simply a right of passage 
over the highway. The owner of the land through 
which the highway passes, is the owner of the soil and 
the timber, except what is necessary to make bridges, 
or otherwise aid in making the highway passable, and 
if the owner of the soil owns the timber, why not the 
grass ?’ The doctrine established by this decision is in 
accordance with a fundamental principle of the common 
law, which has been recognized by elementary writers, 
and judicial decisions in England and this country for a 
great length of time. Though every highway is said to 
be the King’s, yet the King has nothing except the right 
of passage for himself and his people; the freehold of 
all the profit, as trees, &c., belong to the lord or owner 
of the soil, who may have action of trespass for digging 
up the ground of the highway.” 
According to this decision, every land-owner has a 
right to the grass in front of his own land, and he may 
pasture his cattle there, provided he keeps them from 
wandering on his neighbor’s part of the road. 
As a successful experiment in this reformation, we 
quote A. J. Downing’s account of the effort made at 
Newburgh, his residence, given in the Horticulturist; 
“ That it is only needful for a few good citizens in 
every town to look at the matter clearly, and determine 
to have orderly and sanitary laws like these enforced, 
we have had abundant proof in the town where we live 
—which is. so far as we know, the only one in the State 
of Nevv-York where animals are not joint-stock possessors 
of all the streets and highways. Eight or ten years ago, 
Newburgh, which has a population of nine thousand 
inhabitants, was one of the least cleanly and orderly 
towns in the North. Droves of hogs, cows and geese 
ran at large everywhere, and the possessor of a garden 
or even of a bit of sidewalk ivas always liable, night and 
day, to the nuisance and annoyance of numbers of these 
commoners. At length it was determined by a few of 
the more orderly inhabitants, to endeavor to have en¬ 
forced the law for pounding animals. The trustees of 
the village doubted the possibility of enforcing the law, 
and faltered in their duty. At the next election, how¬ 
ever, the hog-law was made the test, trustees favorable 
to its execution were elected by a large majority, not¬ 
withstanding a fierce opposition. When the law w r as en¬ 
forced, so strong was the feeling of resistance, that the 
* As given in ihe Michigan Farmer 
March, 
public pound was several times broken into at night, 
and the animals released. But the orderly part of the 
community stood firmly by the authorities, and the lat¬ 
ter did their duty, until the law triumphed. After 
much grumbling on the part of many who imagined that 
they had a clear right to prey upon the public in this 
manner, a general acquiescence came about. And now 
for five years we have bad cleanly streets, free from all 
animals of all kinds, and such an air of neatness and 
rural beauty has sprung up, that the place has almost 
changed its character. The carriage-gates of grounds, 
like our own, which, under the old system of things, 
needed almost an armed huntsman to keep out the brute 
population, are now wide open day and evening, with¬ 
out the brute population, are now wide open day and 
evening, without the least plant suffering depredation; 
and what is the best part of the story, so completely 
has the feeling of better civilization triumphed, that it 
would, we imagine, be very hardat the present moment, 
to persuade the population of this town to return to the 
old condition of streets, overrun with unclean beasts.’* 
Thoughts on Manures, Special and General. 
It is quite common for farmers, when conversing about 
any particular manure, to ask—“ is it a permanent ma¬ 
nure?” /‘How long will it last?” &c. &c., implying a 
belief that a substance may be in a state of continual 
exhaustion, and yet never exhausted. Such questions 
are most common in relation to guano. Now it would 
seem to the writer that we all misunderstand the true 
nature of manure and vegetable nutrition generally. 
The growth of a vegetable must be at the expense of 
the vegetable nutrition in the soil. When this is ex¬ 
hausted, the soil becomes barren, so far as that particu¬ 
lar vegetable is concerned; and at last barren to every 
description of vegetables—as is most lamentably demon¬ 
strated by the numerous fields of “ worn-out” lands in 
all the middle and southern states. Now if this be so, 
the manure we apply to the soil is the food upon which 
the growing crop lives and grows; and if this be so, what 
are called “permanent manures” are very undesirable, 
even if there were any such things; because it would be 
folly to expend money and labor in applying manure 
that would make no return for five or ten years. We 
all want that which will make the quickest return for 
our money and labor, and hence we should apply the 
manure that will be all used up in a single year, if we 
can get it. For example, suppose we apply a manure 
in sufficient quantity and of a quality to last five years, 
do we not invest money and labor that will make us no 
return probably the first year, and only one-fourtli the 
second and each future year? Is it not better to use 
that kind and that quantity that will all be used the first 
year? The improvement of lands is not now the ques¬ 
tion. Bringing sterile lands into a state of fertility is a 
very different subject. The matter in hand relates to 
the policy of investing money and means that arc to 
make no return for several years hence, instead of that 
which looks to a prompt return of profit on the invest¬ 
ment. 
The writer has often been amused with the theories 
of writers on the subject of manures and vegetable nu¬ 
trition. Many eminent men have advanced the idea 
that vegetables derive most, or a large portion of their 
food from the atmosphere. To demonstrate the incor¬ 
rectness of this idea, we have only to suppose a case. 
Suppose we select a sterile spot in the middle of the 
